Ecosia Search Results: Where are they coming from
Search results and ads on Ecosia are provided by different search partners. This article explains where your results come from, how they’re ranked, and how you can adjust them.
In this article you can find:
Where do Ecosia search results come from?
Search results and related ads on Ecosia come from our partners Microsoft Bing and Google. Which provider delivers your results depends on your location, device type, and the cookie permissions you’ve granted.
You can see which search providers are available to you at any time on the Settings page. If both are available in your region, you can choose your preferred provider. To select Google, you may need to adjust your cookie settings—if so, we’ll ask for your confirmation first.
Both Microsoft and Google continually design and optimize their algorithms to provide the most comprehensive, relevant, and useful search results.
Which sources are used to enhance search results?
We’re always working to improve your search experience by adding helpful features and relevant information to your results. These features use data from specialized sources based on your search query. The availability of instant answers may vary depending on your location, device, and settings.
Here is the list of our current sources for instant answers and features:
- Accuweather for our weather feature
- Banking on Climate Chaos for out coal feature
- BCorp for our green leaf feature
- Climate Accountability Institute for our coal feature
- Climate Action Tracker for environmental impact of countries
- Google Translate for translations
- Economy of common goods for our green leaf feature
- Hilfswerft for our green leaf feature
- BNW for our green leaf feature
- The Global Coal Exit List by Urgewald for our coal feature
- The Guardian for our coal feature
- IPCC assessment for our Climate pledge feature
- Mapbox for maps
- Open AI for our Ecosia chat feature
- Omnio for our sustainable travel feature
- Open Exchange for currency conversions
- Oxford Languages for our dictionary
- Skyscanner for our flights feature
- Timeanddate for the timefeature
- Trip Advisor for restaurants, sightseeing and hotels
- Multiple nonprofits for our mental health feature
How are search results ranked?
Each search provider may prioritize different factors when delivering results. Websites can advertise on Ecosia through Microsoft Advertising or Google AdSense for Search, but this has no impact on organic rankings.
Microsoft Bing ranking
Below you will find an overview of the main parameters that Microsoft Bing uses to rank search results organically. The complex ranking system uses many criteria to deliver search results, and the relative importance of each of the parameters described below can vary from search to search and evolve over time.
| Parameter | Relevance for ranking |
| Relevance | Content is considered relevant when the content of the target page matches the intent behind the search query. This includes matching terms directly on the page, as well as terms used in links that point to the page. Microsoft also considers semantic equivalents, including synonyms or abbreviations that may not be exact matches of the query terms, but are understood to have the same meaning. |
| Quality and credibility | Websites are evaluated on the basis of various factors. These include the reputation of the author, the reputation of the web page, and the level of discourse (e.g. an article with citations and references to data sources is considered higher quality than one that does not explain cited data sources; Microsoft may downgrade content that contains name calling, offensive statements, or derogatory language), the completeness of the content, and the transparency of authorship. |
| Commitment of the users | To determine user interaction, Bing asks questions such as: Did users click through to search results for a particular query, and if so, which results? Did users spend time on those search results they clicked through to, or did they quickly return to the search results page? Did users customize or rephrase the query? |
| Timeliness | The search engine prefers up-to-date content. In many cases, content produced today will be relevant in years to come. In some cases, however, content produced today will quickly become outdated. |
| Location | In the ranking results, Microsoft takes into account the location of users (country and city), where the page is hosted, as well as the language of the document or the location of other visitors to the page. |
| Page loading time | Slow loading times can cause users to leave a website, possibly before the content has even loaded. Microsoft may consider this a poor user experience and an unsatisfactory search result. |
The nature of the products or services offered on a website does not influence how Microsoft ranks results, unless the content is potentially offensive or harmful to users.
For example, pages with adult content are excluded in strict Safe Search mode. Pages promoting harmful content, such as the sale of potential harmful substances may be ranked lower.
Google ranking
Below you will find an overview of the main parameters that Google uses to rank content organically.
| Parameter | Relevance for ranking |
| Meaning of query | First step Google tries to understand what the query intent is. Therefore language models are being built to decipher how the relatively few words you enter into the search box match up to the most useful content available. |
| Relevance of content | Next, Google analyzes the content to assess whether it contains information that might be relevant to what you are looking for. This is based on keywords, They use aggregated and anonymized interaction data to assess whether search results are relevant to queries |
| Quality | After identifying relevant content, Google systems aim to prioritize those that seem most helpful. To do this, they identify signals that can help determine which content demonstrates expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. |
| Usability | Google also considers the usability of content. When all things are relatively equal, content that people will find more accessible may perform better. |
| Context | Information such as your location, past Search history, and Search settings all help to ensure your results are what is most useful and relevant for you at that moment. |