The Best Green Search Engines
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin 
on 07. 9.08
Green Search Engines, or search engines that help charitable causes, are one of the newest trends online. These sites are similar to – and are actually powered by - other search engines, such as Google.com or Yahoo.com, however they divert advertising dollars back into charitable causes. But with 8 billion ad dollars changing hands in 2007, this is clearly an area open to abuse. To help you use your search clicks to the best advantage, TreeHugger has rounded up many of the Green Search Engines. Our review and recommendations are broken into three categories:
- Best Do-good Green Search Engine: the best of green search engines which donate a percent of revenues to green causes;
- Best Network Green Search Engine: the best of green search engines which limit hits to information or products from vetted green suppliers;
- Best of the Rest: Search Engines with other eco-angles
How do Green Search Engines Work?
Before you head off to start using one of these green search engines, it's important to mention a few etiquette tips for do-gooder searches. Green Search Engines work in partnership with other major search engines, such as Google. Use these sites only as you would use a real search engine. Patterns that indicate click-to-donate behavior can cause the green search engine to lose the partnership of the search engine driver. Put another way, if Google thinks you're gaming the system just to raise money for the cause, they may pull the plug on the green search engine, which isn't good. Sites which make claims that promise to donate-for-clicks have already been banned by Google.
Why Should I Use a Do-gooder Green Search Engines?
The Angle: Donating profits or a percent of revenue to environmental causes.
The Upside: Ad dollars get put to good use.
The Downside: Let us know in the comments if you think of any!
Best Green Search Engines for Do-Gooders
1) EcoSearch.
We spoke with David Krasnow, the man behind EcoSearch.org. David runs the site in his spare time out of a commitment to making a difference. Therefore, he says, operating costs are very low, so the site is really just a channel for ad dollars straight to charity. Krasnow intends to continue to donate 100% of profits from the site to the charities listed as the site grows. We encourage David to add this commitment clearly to the "About" info on his website.
- EcoSearch.org donates 100% of profits to charities named on the "About" page on the site.
- Users can request additional environmental charities be added.
- EcoSearch.org is powered by Google.
2) GoodSearch
- GoodSearch donates 50% of revenue to charities chosen by the users of the site
- GoodSearch searches via Yahoo!.
3) GoodTree
- GoodTree gives 12.5% of revenue to charities chosen by the users of the site.
- GoodTree publishes independent audits and shows the disbursements made, by charity.
- GoodTree is a meta-search engine, searching over Yahoo, Google, Ask Jeeves, and MSN.
In a Class of It's Own) Flock Eco-Edition
Flock Eco-Edition, the first-of-its-kind environmental network social web browser, has already drawn attention for:
- putting all your social networking sites under one roof
- promoting green content and
- giving 10% of proceeds from the built-in Yahoo! powered search to an environmental charity voted by all Flock users at the end of the year.
Why Should I Use Network Green Search Engines?
The Angle:These green search engines pre-select a list of reliable information and product providers so that your search will return only the hits which are deemed reliable by their pre-screening.
The Upside: If you feel overwhelmed fishing through the thousands of results returned on a normal Google search, you might want to give these search pages a try. Ideally, these sites apply the trust factor of social networking to the marketplace.
The Downside: Cutting edge new content may not be found. Sustainable suppliers which are not included in the search pool will be missed.
Best Green Network Searching
Green Maven: recommended for green content searches.
Green planet search: One to watch. A spectacular layout, flash-driven search engine, but returns limited hits due to the slow process of responsibly selecting partners.
The Green search, Canadian-oriented search engine.
Ecoseek is useful when searching for products that are environmentally friendly.
Green Link Central claims that all of its feeds are hand-picked by humans.
EcoEarth.info: aims to be a tool for conservation and sustainability themes.
What About the Other Green Search Engines?
The Angle: These sites claim green status by promising to plant a few trees, buying some carbon offsets or displaying a black screen for the potential energy savings.
The Upside: Variety is the spice of life.
The Downside: Your clicks might be going to better use as donated funds or towards building a green market network.
Offset Green Search Engines
If you want to direct your charitable giving without using green search engines, these sites might interest you.
treehoo: plants trees to offset searches
echocho: buys carbon offsets
Blackscreen Green Search Engines
If you are using a CRT (old-fashioned) monitor, blackscreen might save enough energy to make it worth setting your bookmark on. Which is best? Hmmm, really all the same!
Blackle
Blaxel
Earthle
Google-black blogspot
GreenerGle
iBlackle
Jabago
Ninja
Power-google blogspot
Search Greener
Search-in-color
Trek
Greygle: In easier-to-read grey
We wish you good surfing!
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Yeah, good post. http://www.maxgladwell.com/2008/06/green-search-more-than-just-a-query-part-i/
Hi, I'm the founder of Green Maven, the original Green Search Engine.
I use the term 'Green Search Engine' to refer to the results being filtered for 'Green'. For example, there are Visual Search Engines, Local Search Engines, and News Search Engines--all of which refer to what the search engine searches.
Those of use creating results-based (true) Green Search Engines have worked very hard to screen a comprehensive set of trusted results. The term Green Search Engine needs to stay focused on the content, because that's what has substance.
Calling this group of Search Engines 'Green' is misleading to users. If Walmart started donating a % of sales to Green causes, would it then be called 'Green Walmart'? I suggest you re-name this category "charity search engines" as that's what they are.
I look forward to other people's views on this subject.
Thanks,
Joey Shepp
Green Maven Founder
http://www.greenmaven.com
There's going to be a new category in this space soon, beyond just green searching, and that is green shopping.
I'm currently working for a new start-up here in Israel, that has a simple idea of how to change any online store (whether they care about the environment, or not), into a green one... by making it make good business sense for the stores as well.
The idea is so simple, and yet can have such an impact because it really works on any site, it's really an "aha! <smacks forhead>" kind of moment, for the people we shared the idea with.
It's called Green Any Site (or GAS for short), and you can check out a preview on http://www.GreenAnySite.com
Hi,
Great article!
I´ve surfed with treehoo.com for a while now and I think this kind of webpages are fantastic. There potential of this kind of webs is huge as internet has becomed the greatest market for publicity and for selling products.
I hope more people will join this way of surf/life and that the net will become a place for solidarity and for benefit to the human race as well as the entire planet.
Keep on surfing in the free world!
Sam
I have been using Carbon Neutral Search Engine. They offset the emissions generated by each search query. I'm not sure how it stacks up with the ones you've listed but I thought I would pass it along.
Thanks for this great post! I will be trying out several of these search engines! I also look forward to online green shopping.
You forgot Search and Give. Every search you make, you can donate a little money to a cause of your choice (which there are many), and I chose the Sierra Club. Give it a try.
http://searchandgive.com/
Hi,
Does anyone think that donating ad dollars to a charity might encourage ad clicks? While this may be good for the environment, it's certainly not good for the good green businesses who list their sites, unless, of course, the ad clicks are actual potential customers.
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/74646,google-ditches-green-search-engine-for-planting-trees.aspx
Otherwise, I find green search engines that filter content are very useful and I think it's a great idea.
Joe Smith
Wow, first of all I would like to say thank you for naming us in the best green networking category and we haven't even officially launched yet, we will however officially launch August 1st with a few surprises, BUT I have to agree with Mr. Shepp, anyone can put a google api in an html page and call it a green search engine is not fair to the real deal.
Our search engine works by us manually indexing each site after we give it look over, we had the problem early on where we were having to take out quite a few sites because one of the persons we had populating our database was not paying close attention. We are still removing sites!
We strive to only deliver the most relevant content for the forward momentum of the green movement.
Even our add your green site feature on our site is put in a waiting Que. that I personally look at before it gets indexed.
It is a lot of work but the end result is what is best for the visitors.
Again Thank You for the recognition and great compliments and I will give my 200% to make http://www.greenplanetsearch.com a website that remains true to the cause of keeping the environmental movement leaping forward.
PLEASE BE SURE AND REVISIT THE SITE ON OR AFTER OUR LAUNCH DATE OF AUGUST 1st.
Michael Haney
Founder/CEO
http://www.greenplanetsearch.com
Thank you for the mention; we are delighted to be listed among the top green search engines. The dark screen is largely symbolic in the modern use of flat screens and plasmas, but the importance of carbon offsetting the everyday use of Google search cannot be understated. Carbonoffsets are a necessary, but not sufficient condition, of good personal carbon management. We hope we can help you make a difference. The team at searchgreener.org
It's the same as ours BioGoogle. Our servers run on green power and we donate to charity.
www.click4carbon.com launched in August 2008 and is generating a lot of media interest worldwide.
As well as being an environmentally conscious search engine it also has an online community which allows registered members to take part in discussion forums, create their own blogs, add videos etc.
Having looked at and reviewed a number of the green search engines mentioned in this review a lot of them have either had their search capabilities removed or provide no real offsetting benefits.
Click4Carbon donates profits from all ad revenue to the planting of trees worldwide and are independently audited periodically.
Have a look and give it a go - you have nothing to lose!
All the best search engines piled into one. Including Google, Yahoo.
http://www.allthebestsearchengines.blogspot.com
It looks like Google terminated their relationship with EcoSearch as it relates to earning any money for their charities. If you do a search on the site, there are no sponsored ads, only the free algorithmic ads provided by Google, thus no revenue is earned by EcoSearch.
I think you forgot Forestle in the list. They save 0.1m² of rain forest per search. They are also a lot more transparent than the other green search engines.
Sorry to see that http://www.greengamma.com was left off this list. We've just been chosen as a top search engine at greenmuze.com and with all due respect to Green Maven (a tremendous site), we are the original.
Regarding donating profits to charity, the key word is "profits", if they are donating a % of "gross revenue", that would be more credible as "profits" can be manipulated.
Additionally, I echo the comments above regarding clicking for charity, while not actually purchasing green products. In an odd way that actually hurts the green movement,
The portals that manually screen green sites serve the green movement by promoting the companies, blogs etc. that support the environment. That in and of itself is a great contribution and I commend all the true green search engines for their efforts.
Best,
Frank Tirelli
Founder, Greengamma.com
Three good reasons to opt for green search engines. 1) Saving rainforests by going paperless, 2) Soothing and eye healing tip for your eyes 3) Saves minor but significant energy of PC monitor over time.
Kudos to the list. Just wanted to add the new buzz in town
http://www.officialiwant.com
These are all fine online green efforts. Whether they are humble or grand-scale efforts, IMHO, they deserve our respect because they are playing their respective roles to conserve energy and raise public awareness. Here’s another one you might consider, it is my favorite: Greener Search Engine. It is fka or aka Envirogle. The new URL is: http://www.greenersearchengine.com
All of these green engines are ways we can help out a bit on a regular basis. Thanks for publishing your best-of list for everyone to consider how they may go greener and help make a difference for Earth!
Sincerely,
Peter
I would like to add http://greenlineindex.com. It is a repostory of all green businesses. It is a directory of all green services and businesses.