It just launched, and we’re already in love. Developed by Ahrefs, this powerful and free search tool will help you find answers to all your web questions. It’s already positioning itself as a serious competitor to the giant Google, and we’ll explain why.
It’s not the first time ambitious entrepreneurs have tried to dethrone Google, the leader (and pioneer) of internet search. We can list numerous alternatives: Ecosia, the eco-friendly search engine; Microsoft’s Bing; DuckDuckGo; or even the French Qwant.
But let’s face it: these sites have never managed to impose themselves against the behemoth Google, which still holds over 90% of the global market share in 2024 (and over 97% on mobile). Check out the attached graph:
We can see that Google reigns supreme over the search kingdom! It leaves only crumbs for the Americans Bing and Yahoo, the Russian Yandex, and the Chinese Baidu. With its hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue (for parent company Alphabet), this trend can only grow.
So, the question is: Why would Yep succeed where all others have failed? We’re going to answer that!
To test it out, visit Yep.com
An Initiative by Ahrefs, SEO Specialists 👍
Yep was created by Ahrefs, an online software company based in Singapore that offers a suite of all-in-one SEO tools, including an excellent Backlink checker.
So, let’s just say they know keywords, crawling, and indexing like the back of their hand.
In short, Ahrefs are simply the best SEO experts on the planet (even if their tool costs an arm and a leg and they’ve hiked up the prices out of sheer greed). Their crawling bot (AhrefsBot) processes several billion pages daily, more than Googlebot (according to them).
Yepbot is designed to crawl several billion pages daily, with indexing updates every 15 to 30 minutes. Technically, Yep has nothing to fear from the Mountain View firm, which is already a good thing.
The basic idea came from Ahrefs founder and CEO Dmitry Gerasimenko, who has been toying with the idea of creating his own internet search engine since 2019.
What started as a vague utopia is now a reality with the launch of Yep.com!
Ahrefs has already invested over $60 million in the Yep project. This investment speaks volumes about the huge ambition of this future internet heavyweight, which aims to shake up the tech giants, even though it’s still tiny compared to Google (which operates in billions, let’s not forget).
Who better than search engine experts to launch this type of platform? They perfectly understand Google’s algorithms and have the technical resources to carry out this massive project.
A Short Name, a Strong Brand
What will likely ensure Yep’s success is also its strong brand.
As you may know, "Yep" is an English word commonly used to say "Yes / Yeah," but with a cool, youthful vibe.
You could also see it as a contraction of Yes and Hop, giving the idea of a positive and quick response.
Branding is never a detail; it’s what can propel a project or, conversely, sink it.
When compared to its main competitors (Google and Bing), Yep already wins with a very short name, only three letters (no doubt the purchase of the Yep.com domain was a multi-million-dollar transaction).
Graphically, the font is modern, and the yellow color is warm and dynamic. Everything needed for it to work 😊
Accessing old versions of the site on the Wayback Machine, we notice that the initial project was supposed to be called FAIR (with Ahrefs' typical "A"):
This name made sense because it highlighted the "fair" aspect of the engine, but the chosen name is much more marketable, even if it resembles Yelp (a well-known local business directory).
A Clean Site, Readable Results
In terms of web design, the SERP (search engine results page) is very clean, with bold blue links (unlike Google), making them easier to read.
There’s a little "News" tab to discover current events. Notably absent is image search (for now).
The visual rendering is very engaging.
Yep.com Wants to Reward Creators by Sharing 90% of Advertising Revenue
The main difference between Google and Yep will come from better revenue sharing between the search engine and content creators.
Currently, Google forces us (if we want to rank on the first page) to create millions of interesting, relevant, and exciting content on our websites: blog articles, guides, product descriptions, etc. SEO relies on this.
All this content is ultimately monetized by Google with its Google Ads advertising solution (generating billions of dollars in profits). That’s their business model.
Yep wants to break these codes and let everyone who deserves it benefit from the advertising profits of their search engine.
The man behind this project, Dmitry Gerasimenko, particularly cites the example of Wikipedia (the 5th most visited site in the world), which must rely on donations to survive, even though Google significantly benefits from these millions of encyclopedia articles written by volunteers, without sharing anything in return!
Google’s Page Will Turn One Day
Even if Yep doesn’t achieve the success we hope for, it’s inevitable that Google will one day lose its leadership position.
Just like Facebook becoming outdated, like Myspace, Dailymotion, or even MSN, Google will eventually join the graveyard of former web giants 🪦