Features to Enhance Your Search Experience

Ecosia’s search engine is designed to feel familiar and powerful while helping you make greener choices online. Beyond classic web results, Ecosia offers shortcuts, advanced search tools, filters, and green features that highlight more sustainable options as you browse.

Generative AI features on Ecosia Search

Ecosia AI features support you by giving you a quick overview of a topic or answering questions in a chat‑like interface. 

• Overviews: An AI-generated summary box at the top of the results. It combines information from multiple top sources into a short, easily readable answer.
• AI Chat: A chat‑style experience where you can ask Ecosia’s AI follow‑up questions, just like messaging a friend.

For more information on how to use AI-features have a read at the respective FAQ: Generative AI on Ecosia 

Adjust market and search provider in Ecosia Search settings

Your individual Ecosia search settings influence the kind of results and rich content you see.

Ecosia automatically chooses a default market based on your location and settings. We currently offer a specific range of countries and languages that are covered by our search partners’ availability.

The underlying search provider (Bing, Google, EUSP) is chosen by Ecosia per market, device and availability. If available you can select a preferred search provider in your Ecosia Search Settings.

For more information on Ecosia Search Settings have read of the article Customize your Ecosia Search Settings

Search Shortcuts (Search Tags)

Search shortcuts (also called search tags) are short codes you can add to your query to jump directly to other sites or Ecosia verticals, without leaving the search bar.

How to use search shortcuts

• Click the search bar and type what you’re looking for.
• Add a space, then type a shortcut (for example #w or !w for Wikipedia).
• Press Enter.

Ecosia will send your query directly to that service, or open the matching Ecosia vertical.

Popular shortcuts

• Ecosia verticals:
  • #i, #images → Ecosia Images
  • #n, #news → Ecosia News
  • #s, #shopping → Ecosia Shopping
  • #v, #videos → Ecosia Videos
• Popular sites

  • #a, #amazon → Amazon

    #apv, #primevideo → Amazon Prime Video

    #b, #bing → Bing

    #e, #ebay → eBay

    #ek, #ebayklein → eBay Kleinanzeigen

    #fb, #facebook → Facebook

    #gm, #gmail → Gmail

    #g, #google → Google

    #gd, #gdocs, #docs → Google Drive

    #gi, #gimages → Google Images

    #maps, #gmaps → Google Maps

    #gn, #gnews → Google News

    #gs, #gscholar → Google Scholar

    #gt, #gtranslate → Google Translate

    #ig, #instagram → Instagram

    #ia, #iarchive → Internet Archive

    #work, #files → Microsoft work files

    #nf, #netflix → Netflix

    #p, #pinterest → Pinterest

    #reddit → Reddit

    #spotify → Spotify

    #twitter → Twitter

    #whatsapp → WhatsApp

    #w, #wikipedia → Wikipedia

    #wa, #wolfram → Wolfram Alpha

    #yt, #youtube → YouTube

Advanced search operators help you refine your search when you need more precise results.

They’re especially useful for research or complex topics. Because Ecosia uses multiple different search providers, some operators may work differently depending on which provider is powering your results.

Combine or exclude words (Boolean operators)

You can use words and symbols to control which results you get:

• AND – show results that include both words.
• OR – show results that include either word.
• - (minus) – exclude a word.
• " " (quotes) – search for an exact phrase.

Examples

• solar panels AND subsidy
  • Shows pages that mention both “solar panels” and “subsidy”.
• solar panels OR heat pumps
  • Shows pages that mention either “solar panels” or “heat pumps” (or both).
• solar panels -China
  • Shows pages about solar panels, excluding those that mention “China”.
• "renewable energy statistics 2023"
  • Shows pages that contain exactly that phrase.

Search only on one website (site:)

• Use site: to focus on a specific domain.
• In the search bar, type your topic.
• Add a space.
• Add site: followed by the website.

Examples

• deforestation report site:un.org
• climate adaptation site:who.int

Search for a specific file type (filetype:)

Some underlying providers support restricting results to certain file types.

• Type your topic.
• Add a space.
• Add filetype: plus the extension.

Examples

• energy transition filetype:pdf → PDFs.
• climate adaptation filetype:ppt → PowerPoint decks (when available).

These tools work best in markets where Ecosia is powered by Google or Bing with full operator support. Results can vary slightly by country. You can explore the full list of supported operators by our search result providers here:

• Google search operators
• Microsoft Bing advanced search keywords

Filtering your search results

Filters are clickable options on the results page that help you narrow down what you see, without typing any operators.

You’ll usually find filters in a bar near the top of the results, just under the search box. 

Filter web results

On the main Web results tab, you may see filters such as:

Time – like “Any time”, “Past 24 hours”, “Past week”, depending on your search result provider.

Search region – to get results tailored to a specific country.

Filtering image results

On the Images tab, you can filter by:

• Size (small, medium, large)
• Colour (colour, black & white, transparent)
• Type
• Time
• Layouts
• License or Usage rights (depending on your region)

Filter news and video results

On the News and Videos tabs, you may see similar filters, for example:

• Time (e.g. latest news first)
• Other options provided by the underlying news or video provider

To filter news or videos:

1. Search for your topic.
2. Click either the News or Videos tab.
3. Use the filters bar to choose the options you want (for example, a time range).
4. The results will refresh automatically.

Rich Content on the Results Page

Ecosia doesn’t just show a list of links. Depending on your query and location, you might see extra content directly on the results page:

• Quick Answers and snippets: For example, direct answers, definitions, and highlighted content at the top of the results.
  • Calculator — 2+2, 128*24, 15/3
  • Currency Conversion — 100 eur to usd, 20 pound to canadian dollars
  • Word Definitions — define ambiguity, define environmentalist
  • Translation — trees in spanish, kartoffel in english
  • Timezone — time in tokyo, utc+1, usa time
  • My IP — my IP address
  • Measurements — 1 inch to cm, 2 cups to grams
• Location‑related queries: These features may use your location settings and cookie preferences (for example, how you prefer temperature or wind units to be displayed).
  • Weather — berlin weather, amsterdam weather
  • Maps — 5 avenue anatole france
  • Hotels  —  hotel in Berlin
  • Points of Interests — restaurants in Berlin, things to do in new york
  • Flights — flights from london to vancouver
• Shortcuts to verticals and services: Clicking these options switches you to a more focused vertical (for example, only images, or only news).

Green Search Features

Ecosia also adds green features that highlight more sustainable options and help you make climate‑friendly choices while you search.

Green leaf labels for eco‑friendly domains

Some search results show a small green leaf icon next to the website.

This means:

• Organizations highlighted with the green leaf aren't ads or paid results. 
• The domain is part of a curated list of websites that are considered more sustainable or aligned with ecological values.
• Ecosia wants to help you spot these greener choices at a glance.

We do not pick each organization that gets a green leaf ourselves. This feature relies on credible external data sources. Our current data set contains information from these organizations:

• Economy of common goods (GWÖ) 
• B-Corp
• Bundesverband Nachhaltiges Wirtschaften e.V. (BNW - formerly Unternehmensgrün)

Organizations with the green leaf must have an accreditation of one of the listed organizations. We aim to update our data set bi-annually. 

Fossil fuel labels for coal-industry supporting domains

• Some search results show a small fossil fuel icon next to the website.

This means:

• Organizations highlighted with the fossil fuel icon are companies that are still promoting the expansion of coal mining and fossil fuels. 

This feature relies on credible external data sources:

• The Global Coal Exit List by Urgewald
• Climate Accountability Institute
• The Guardian
• Banking on Climate Chaos