Planting Trees… whilst searching the web

Over the last two years Digital Forest has been using a number of alternative Search engines to the ubiquitous Google. You don’t have to work in the online marketing Industry to realise that Googles market dominance is not only huge, but potentially detrimental to both the free web and individuals privacy.

Whilst Bing provides a technical challenger to Google with advanced ranking algorithms, search filtering and a profitable PPC platform and Duck Duck Go provides a more private alternative for those ‘in the know’, There is one search engine worth considering that provides an environmental benefit as well.

Ecosia is a not-for-profit, Registered B Corp, European organisation that has leveraged the Bing Search Platform to provide a privacy friendly, CO2 Neutral Search platform that diverts advertising revenue to its global tree planting mission.

Ecosia takes a slice of every ad click revenue, meaning that on average, every 45 searches provides enough clicks and revenue to finance a new tree being planted. At the moment Ecosia are getting enough clicks to finance the planting of a new tree every second. Now that can make a substantial difference to the environment - every search request can effectively remove 1kg of CO2 from the atmosphere!

Why do trees matter anyway?

Trees are a powerful way to mitigate rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but they also provide a myriad of other benefits including preventing soil erosion and landslips, flood prevention, habitat protection and a resource and means of sustaining rural communities. As Ecosia puts it:

“Simply by planting a tree, you can fight climate change, restore landscapes, protect wildlife, provide nutrition, employment, education, medical assistance and economic stability”

Given that it is estimated there are over 2.3 million searches per second on Google alone, even a small share of that traffic could enable Ecosia to plant a vast number of trees, substantially influencing CO2 levels and creating a better environment for animals and people alike.

We think this is a powerful alternative to Google and other search engines and with over 7 million active users on Ecosia, we are not alone. Having used it consistently over the last year on all our systems we have found that it works just as well as Google, providing consistently relevant results that are similar in content to Google and just as fast, but without the tracking nuisance.

So, do something good for yourself and the planet today by switching to Ecosia.