If you have net savvy kids at home who on seeing you online desire for the same, but you, being scared of the online world deprive them from using the Internet. Its time you stop worrying and encourage your child to use the Internet as it will broaden their knowledge-base and thinking power. Everyone knows that you can filter the results of almost all search engines by tweaking the Advanced Search Settings a bit. But who knows if by any chance an unfiltered result creep in. So here I have listed 10 Search Engines with safe search features created exclusively for kids so that you can leave them on their own and rest assured that they would not fall prey to any explicit online content.
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I personally handpicked these 11 search engines from a whole lot of 25+ Search Engines for Kids. I used various criteria for testing these sites. I searched for some potentially harmful words and put those sites out of my final list which returned some sort of results. Also I did not consider sites with heavy advertisements since I don’t want kids to turn into customers.
Ask Kids
Ask Kids is one of the very friendly search engines for kids and is maintained by Ask.com. The homepage looks like a typical notebook with the search box on the top left corner. It is designed to meet the standards of kids from ages 6 to 12. It is a safe and fun way for students to learn various topics. It has all the features of Ask.com, but is built on safe search features.
KidRex is built on Google Custom Search. It has a nice looking crayon style homepage with handwriting resembling that of a kid. It uses Google Safe Search features. The dinosaur stands guard to ensure that the search results are kid friendly.
Sweet Search
A sweetly built search engine for kids. The interface is neat and the search is powered by Google. The search results are reviewed by professionals. Sweet Search has an option to search within its database and the whole of Google as well. You can share the results to your Google docs account and also on Social Networking websites.
KidzSearch
Resembling a Google-like homepage, KidzSearch is quite popular among kids. It uses Google Safe Search feature and also have its own KidzSearch filtering as an added layer. The search results also appear similar to that in Google.
Boolify
A unique concept of searching using Boolean operators. It is powered by Bing. Kids are not aware of how Boolean Operators work, so you might think it to be of no use to kids. But this search engine just uses the concept of Boolean Operators to produce the results. If you want to search for “Water Pollution“, drag the green keyword piece and write “Water“. Again drag “And” and again a “Word” piece and write “Pollution“. On the other hand if you want to search for the term “Water” and want to exclude “Pollution” from the search results, drag the green “Word” piece and write “Water“. Now drag “Not” and again drag the green “Word” piece and type “Pollution“. Your search result will not contain the word “Pollution” or any other word with a similar meaning. That’s fun I guess. Moreover you can save a search result, you can view a previously saved result and also you can delete a search result.
One of the most lively Search Engines for Kids on the list. It feels like you are in midst of nature. It is powered by Yahoo!. When you enter a search term, you get the search results below and above the search bar you will find some keywords in the form of a cloud which relates to the entered query. If you do not find the search results of your choice hover over the keywords on the cloud and click the one you find appropriate and the corresponding results will be displayed.
Dib Dab Doo and Dilly Too
The list above contains search engines for kids your child would love to interact with. So, gone are the days when you were bound to be tied to your son or daughter when they decide to go online. I have compiled this list of search engines keeping in mind the traffic, so the site listed on top gets the most traffic while that listed at the bottom gets the least traffic. But do remember that even the ones down the list are great sites. Have a look at the top 20 Safe and Interactive Social Networks for Kids