PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Oct. 27, 2020 - Lynn Bentley, President Knobull, Inc. asked, "Which academic search engine is better at finding the information you want, fast? For a variety of reasons, Knobull was rated higher than Google by The College Post.
Knobull may just be one of those competitors, especially if you're looking for privacy. What follows is a comparison of the features of two academic search engines – Knobull and Google Scholar."
Knobull doesn't follow its users around with ads since it won't store their search history, won't track their IP address, and no personal data to sell, regardless of whether the user is in private browsing mode.
For starters, it has a similar layout to Google, including:
• Search engine landing pages (SERPs) of 24 organic search results.
• Knobull uses its web crawler, Refseek, with other sources to compile its search results, including 5 billion academic documents such as online libraries, data bases, journals and news articles. Also a Messageboard to collaborate, student news and Resources Page with links to a majority of academic sources.
There are some other attractive features that Knobull offers its users, but its biggest messaging points come from:
• The brand's high standards for privacy.
• Being an efficient and respectable search engine despite its projected small piece of search market share.
Knobull connections will soon reach 5000 in the next several months with a projected 10,000 users by mid-2021. If it keeps growing at this rate, more people will continue to take notice and that number could reach 100,000 by early 2022.
A staple of its foundation, Knobull preaches its desire to not track any information and prides itself on offering the most private academic search engine on the market. Even though Google continues to add privacy features, the fact remains that their business model is built on the sale of personal data!
That's actually exactly why it has become one of the most successful companies: the quality of its search platform. On the organic side, Google treats personalization as a benefit to the user, but that's all achieved through data collection as well.
Which academic search engine should be used. What works best for you is the right answer here. It's all about preference. Both academic search engines can likely get you the answer your looking for.
Anyone who is passionate about privacy would likely lean toward – and prefer – Knobull solely for its strong privacy policies but also since it is a better-than-average academic search engine trying to do right for the people.
Bentley concluded, "That doesn't change the fact that, if you can't find an answer on Knobull through search or the Resources page, you're going to go to Google to find it. And you will find it there but at what lack of privacy price!"
