Like Google, it creates revenue from advert clicks on its search pages, with around half of it spent on planting. According to the description of this website, the developers declare to have planted over 70 million plants in countries such as Indonesia, Peru, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Madagascar & Nicaragua, all with the help of its active users. Sounds too good to be true, right? I’ll break it down into two main parts: utility and user experience. When you utilize their search engine, the advertisers who bid for Ad Spaces potentially pay more so that their advertisements will be visible to the users. 3. How does Ecosia make money and do they really plan trees with it? There are a few things that come to mind that they could be doing to try to mislead users if they wanted to, such as: I think the big concern here is that they might not be planting the trees they claim to be. Trees are the lifeline of our little blue planet. Quite a few people have written in and asked if Ecosia is downright fake. Somewhere around 45 searches will plant a single tree. Specifically, I figure out if Ecosia is real when they say Ecosia plants trees for every web search you make. Links: Main site: My advice is to check out the Ecosia team and see if these are folks you’re willing to trust with your online data. Also how sustainable is Ecosia as a company? Trees not only produce oxygen but also absorb carbon dioxide. Many trees around the globe burned in the flames of bushfires and forest fires over the recent years. According to Ecosia, the company helps plant a tree every 30 seconds. Specifically, I figure out if Ecosia is real when they Your email address will not be published. Ecosia does however get criticism from a few sites online, including an article from 2Spyware claiming that Ecosia is a browser-hijacker, and borderline virus. Ecosia does a decent job at this. Potentially Legit. Literally everything that shows up on the screen when searching for a local service provider is a paid advertisement. Instead of searching the web with Google, do your searches with Ecosia and help plant a few trees while you’re at it. You don’t have to make any effort besides downloading the search engine, and you’re helping Mother Nature. It means that Ecosia doesn’t have any carbon emissions related to your searches. Check Ecosia.org trust rating on WOT database: Excellent: 94 / 100 . But given the track record of the team at Ecosia I’m pretty confident they aren’t out to scam people. According to the group behind the service, the search engine stores the searches for a week, with the information becoming anonymous after this period. When you actually use it, however, it uses the funds from your searches to plant trees. How can they claim that they’re following their mission statement to.. “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”. But, after doing my research I can’t deny: they are planting thousands of trees all around the world, in places it’s most needed. What I’ve decided to do is have Ecosia as the default and if it doesn’t give me the results I’m looking for I just use the awesome shortcuts pointed out by Felix in the comments. A few weeks ago a Dutch friend of mine introduced me to Ecosia, the Berlin-based social enterprise eco search engine that uses their profits to plant trees (that’s a mouthful). Does Ecosia really plant all those trees? We simply can’t expect Ecosia.org to outperform Google in just about anything besides doing amazing things for our planet by planting trees (although they do win at one other thing, check it out below). As great as Ecosia’s mission is to solve many of the world’s greatest problems by planting trees funded with search revenue, it’s understandable that for some the convenience of Google’s advanced features will prevail. Ecosia is a search engine that makes you smarter and saves the planet at the same time. The last Australian bushfire has raged for months. Stay tuned with our weekly recap of what’s hot & cool. Forest also help the ecosystem and regulate water cycles. A search engine that plants trees? It worked well so far. Assuming you’ve installed the Ecosia extension on Google Chrome follow these instructions: That’s it, now you’ve uninstalled the Ecosia.org extension and all your settings will go back to what they were before. Let’s dive deep! Also, keep in mind that Ecosia does have a development team so their search engine should only improve with time. You don’t have to click through to get the full definition. WOT Trust Rating. In short: please don’t worry, Ecosia.org is absolutely safe to use, won't hurt your computer and what we are working on is absolutely legit! Contact Us | Privacy Policy | TOS | All Rights Reserved. Is this search engine actually planting trees, or is it just a bunch of baloney and a scam? Ecosia is something simple at first, a search engine. Join our newsletter and get all the latest. The financial reports will have to be taken at face value as Ecosia is not a public company, there is no Ecosia stock, or all the auditing and regulation that comes with it. It is powered by Bing and its native, unique algorithms. Sounds a little too good to be true, doesn’t it? I can point you to two different resources for this. To me that’s good news. Set aside a few minutes from your day to bookmark Ecosia and make it your default search engine. Remember though, this is a self reported breakdown that as far as I can tell has not been independently audited. Seeing that you’ve helped plant a tree is a very cool feeling. Ecosia.org is a certified B Corporation. So, are they actually planting trees? Does Ecosia plant trees? View all 2 Comments. So there are a variety of ways to compare the two services. Unfortunately projects that set out to do great for the world often receive criticism, and the Ecosia search engine won’t be immune. I’ve also received quite a few messages from readers that are involved in Ecosia’s reforestation projects. After enduring armed conflict for more than five decades, this region is now going through a major transition, since a peace agreement was made between the government and guerrillas. They’ve spent billions of dollars over more than 20 years making the best search tools imaginable. But they do it in no way different than when Google places ads in your search results, Google just dishes out the profits to their investors instead of planting trees. Ecosia after all is still a pretty small company with roughly 8 million users (although this is growing really fast). I’m really hoping that Ecosia builds out some new features in the coming years so I won’t even have to think about Google though. Human278 . Reply. In my eyes this is way better than trying to hack together some in-house solution that really doesn’t work well (looking at you Apple). Claim: The search engine Ecosia uses a portion of its profits to help plant trees. Often times the rich snippet on Google is even better than this one, saving you from having to click through to another page: You also get that awesome frequently asked questions box with Google, I haven’t seen that at all in Ecosia. They are a vital tool in fighting climate change. You’ll see in the coming paragraphs that of anything you can say about Ecosia, their product is definitely real, so I think we can lay that one to rest. So this means if you search for local plumbers on Ecosia and click one of the advertised services, 80% of the amount that the plumber pays for that ad will go to planting trees (after deducting expenses as pointed out by Lee in the comments), pretty cool huh?? Ecosia is a new search engine that plants trees through online searches. The best part is that you don’t have to donate any money and don’t have to do anything but bookmark the website and search. There were two major things that I wanted to learn about Ecosia: Let’s make legitimacy the first thing we look at in this Ecosia critique because that’s the most important part. So, by planting a few trees every few days, you’re contributing to the global awareness in this department. Your Ecosia searches are supporting coffee farmers in Cauca, Colombia. Are relevant results being shown? I tried typing in “social enterprise” and “define social enterprise” and neither of them brought up that incredibly useful rich snippet definition that I’ve taken for granted on Google. As much as I love what Google is able to do, I have to admit over the last year or two I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with how aggressive they’re getting with their advertising. You can also check out Ecosia’s tree projects blog to see some really cool content about what they’re doing with the money. So basically:€1,567,995 – (€475,862 + €78,465) = €1,013,668 (Revenue – (Operating Costs + Spreading the Word) = Total Profit), Then take €815,378 / €1,013,668 = .8044 or 80.44% (Tree Planting Spend / Total Profit = % of Profit Spent on Tree Planting), So this means in July Ecosia claims to have spent slightly more than their goal on planting trees. Hopefully they’ll keep sending updates as they come. If this is you, then have no fear because it’s pretty easy to uninstall Ecosia at any time. But given the track record of the team at Ecosia I’m pretty confident they aren’t out to scam people. I wouldn’t even dock them any points for this because they send you to the best service available and there isn’t much lag time in the redirect. The website itself is 100% safe, but like all search engines you can find some.... interesting things. You may not have heard of the Ecosia search engine, but it plays a major role in the reforestation project. How do we actually know if Ecosia is planting these trees or not? This does not effect our editorial in any way. Ecosia does however get criticism from a few sites online, including an article from 2Spyware claiming that Ecosia is a browser-hijacker, and borderline virus. So, what is Ecosia? Ecosia makes money in the same way that Google’s search engine makes money, through search engine ads. ..if in fact the highest bidder is determining the organization of information? While you can’t really dispute the claims made by 2Spyware, just keep in mind that literally everything they criticize about Ecosia is also true for Google, Bing, Yahoo, and any other search engine you use. A lot are even curious if there’s an Ecosia Snopes article to verify their claims. Is Ecosia safe? Jordan Read more February 18, 2020. The short answer is: yes, they are. You’d search the web anyway, so why not help our planet while you’re at it? Report Summary. I have been using Tab for a Cause Chrome addon but I like more planting trees idea so I switched for Ecosia. The allure of planting trees for every online search sounds pretty amazing, let’s find out the truth behind Ecosia. Ecosia.org Legit? So, Ecosia does help plant trees. Ecosia, like chrome, Firefox and internet explorer is a search engine, but Ecosia uses the revenue from the ads to plant trees. WOT is a browser add-on used by millions of users to rate websites … Where does Ecosia plant trees / Why does Ecosia plant trees? Ecosia simply gave me the link so I could know how many trees this article has helped plant. They also claim full transparency by actually publishing financial support proof. Ecosia is the best. I know these ads help them to gain profits which ultimately help in planting trees, but I think this should have been mentioned. If that’s you, send me a message. I love how when I google a single word Google seems to know if I’m searching for a definition. But how does Ecosia … **UPDATE: Ecosia now has some cool shortcuts as pointed out by Felix in the comments. Personally, I’m not concerned about an ecosia.org virus. Here’s another area where Ecosia is trailing behind Google. I have a feeling this article was written by someone who hasn’t ever used Ecosia and was directed to write about Ecosia being a virus to get the search traffic. Probably does not matter though. We found nothing wrong with the website. They claim that Ecosia may hijack your search results and place ads in them… ummm yeah that’s exactly the point, we’re trying to pay for trees here! This is a innovative idea that is sure to make an impact, considering technology usually creates a negative impact on the inviroment. You can see the full list of shortcuts on Ecosia’s support page on search tags.**. This certification means “rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.”. Ecosia is also B Lab-certified. While I do think those accusations against Ecosia aren’t based on rationality, I also have to acknowledge that they could be true, just like Google could be a virus. Anyway, Ecosia assume it is about the same as Google and then “offset” this amount with Pure. I’m a digital marketer by day so I saw first hand the effect of Google’s rollout of the Local Service ads last summer. It could be going faster because of growing popularity and exposure. However, the “B” stands for the fact that Ecosia got its certificate from B Lab, which is a nonprofit organization. In order to figure out whether Ecosia is legit, we need to understand if and how searching for things on the internet leads to tree planting. Google is the 8 gazillion pound gorilla in the room. Ecosia could single handedly plant all the trees that the earth needs, and maybe even move on to support other good causes as well. This is a innovative idea that is sure to make an impact, considering technology usually creates a negative impact on the inviroment. And finally, here's a YouTube video analyzing the legitimacy of Ecosia. I want to make sure I’m setting realistic expectations here. You've already flagged this Mateusz Hyla 28 reviews. There's a new search engine: Ecosia. Everything Has to Start Somewhere, Should We Be Championing This Cause? When I first heard about Ecosia I didn’t believe it was a real thing. Their business model is simple: donate 80% of their profits towards planting trees. Hopefully you’ll reconsider in the future for the sake of the planet :). To put it very simply, it’s a free search engine that generates ad revenue. You don’t even have to install anything. Plant trees while you browse the web! One of the reasons I’m pretty excited for the future of Ecosia is because as of now it’s only a simple search engine and it’s making a pretty decent chunk of profit, imagine if they create a display ad network, video platform (like YouTube), data & cloud services, and everything else Google does. In order to figure out whether Ecosia is legit, we need to understand if and how searching for things on the internet leads to tree planting. Only when you scroll down to practically the bottom of the page do you see organic search results. This certification means “rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.” So, let’s follow the money. It runs on Bing tho, which is not 100% carbon neutral. Health Details: Ecosia is something simple at first, a search engine. Is it real? Find out in this video! With the increased demand for Google’s rival search engine, many people may be in doubt about what the company does with data obtained from Internet users. So, privacy wise – it is a privacy-friendly search engine. Once again, you can close your eyes and keep up with it. The Tanzania post has some really cool footage! I say search engine because Google makes money hand-over-fist in a ton of other ways beyond its core search engine product. The idea immediately clicked with me for a few reasons I’ll discuss below. That’s why naturally the question arises whether Ecosia is a scam or legit. Don’t let the fact that €815,378 is only 52% of their monthly revenue of €1,567,995 fool you into thinking that they aren’t honoring their pledge to use 80% of profits to plant trees, you have to subtract out the expenses before making the calculation. Eventually we as a society will have to begin making lifestyle compromises if we don’t want our grandchildren to end up living in climate controlled glass bubbles. Your email address will not be published. Do you have to click through to an article to find out what time a show is at or will it be delivered in rich snippet like Google often does? Ecosia is a search engine based in Berlin, Germany, that donates 80% or more of its profits to nonprofit organizations that focus on reforestation. Susan Palmer. The answer is it’s 100% legit. Let us know what you think in the comment section below and feel free to join in on the discussion. “Is Ecosia legit” should actually be a check if firstly, the trees they claim to plant are actually planted; second, the trees, if planted are not just replace trees that have been just cut down and would have been re-planted anyway, and third, if the trees are actually protected in the long term, so they are not just cut down again in 30 years, to be replaced again. Though this article does a good job of motivating people to use Ecosia, there is a thing which is overlooked.It is mentioned that it is ‘a quality search engine’, which may be true, but anyone who has ever used Ecosia will tell you that there are quite a bit of ads. Let’s take a peek at what Ecosia is capable of. They’ve got most of the basic conversions, like inches to centimeters: As a frequent traveler I use this feature a lot. Wouldn’t that be awesome? That all means that Ecosia is a legitimate green search engine. I find it very fast and friendly search engine. No, the Ecosia employees don’t plant trees. This is all about how much time each search engine is able to save and the quality of information delivered. The website features a counter in the top-right corner to incentivize its users to do more searches (and thereby plant more trees). Let’s dive a bit deeper into Ecosia and see how legit they are. In this Our Changing Climate environmental video essay, I look whether the search engine Ecosia is legit. Share. Ecosia on Snopes: "As far as we can tell, Ecosia is a legitimate search engine that truly uses a portion of its profits to help plant trees around the world." I understand that Google’s search engine is a product provided by a company and they’re free to do whatever they want with it, but honestly I think that they’re pushing it too far with this. Bookmark the Ecosia homepage and search the web like you always do. I write for kicks, hope you get some value from it. How to Disable Military Time in Google Sheets, The 25 Best Family-Friendly Movies Streaming on Netflix [December 2020], How to Turn Off Scientific Notation in Google Sheets, How to Clear All Filters in Google Sheets, How To Record a FaceTime Call [October 2020], How to Scan & Fix Hard Drives with CHKDSK in Windows 10, How to Install YouTube Kids on Your Amazon Fire Tablet, How To Delete Your Gmail Address Permanently [October 2020], How To Speed Up Windows 10 – The Ultimate Guide, How to Install the Google Play Store on an Amazon Fire Tablet. Ecosia.org is a certified B Corporation. * Ecosia also sells t-shirts on EcosiaShop: Ecosia Clothing * they have a blog Useful. Alright so let’s start off with the utility of Ecosia.org vs Google.com. Compare this to Ecosia when searching for a local service provider: I mean there are still a lot of ads. 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Are a variety of ways to compare the two services for every web search you make through past... Flagged this Mateusz Hyla 28 reviews weren ’ t out to scam people free have. To scam people fighting Climate change a privacy-friendly search engine ads actually publishing support! Usually creates a negative impact on the discussion of dollars over more than 20 years making the best tools... Much time each search engine because Google 's data centers apparently use half... As the base similar facilities the 8 gazillion pound gorilla in the comment section below and feel free to in...: some pages on this site may include an affiliate link how Ecosia is a nonprofit organization and.

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