A map reviewing the evolution of Neeva Search Engine

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I have discovered this new company that launched in June 2021 a new way to search in the Internet.

This is the map I have build, it’s not a deep in features map, full of components, but it’s a starting.

Neeva first Wardley map

What the user needs

The main need is to find “something”, the point is that to find that “something” you have to fight with Ads and promoted “something”.

Looking at the percentage of users that use DucDuckGo (I include myself), I see a lot of room for improvement on this area.

The security requirements and tracking awareness of the users is increasing and I’m sure this trend will continue. And I’m not sure about how much people is aware of the promoted “something” they are finding. Here we can have large discussions.

How is the search engine competition going on?

Well, it’s difficult to say there is competition with a player that is doing this massive amount of market share.

Source: https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share

The alternative search engines don’t have a tough challenge here, they are trying to climb the Everest.

What is Neeva offering?

Neeva search engine is a private search, but I do not know what it really means. They have started with a couple of initial main features:

  • Provide a better, ad-free experience.
  • Customize your search
  • Product recommendations from trusted places
  • They crawl the web, so they can add special units.
  • Current offer = Get 3 months free, then just $4.95 per month.
  • Neeva founders & management team = ex-Google executives

Will Neeva find a place in this tough competitive market? … Let’s see.

Other alternative players

If we remove the main stream players, I mean, search engine places doing something different or alternative to what Google is doing. Then we have something like this:

Remember: All maps are wrong, some are useful. Mapping means draw a draft + feedback, so if you have some feedback, please let me know.

Notes and links

Many thanks Nigel Barron for your feedback.

Update January 2023

Neeva continues competing in a tough market where the domain stays in Google (92,57%). Google has increased their presence during these 14 months.

Neeva continues being very small, and I can only say this is a feeling, no more as there are no public numbers about it.

There are many things that have happened during 2022 around search engines. One of the more notorious thing is ChatGPT (around the search engine market).

LLMs (Large Languages Models) progression is being wild during last 3 years. For instance, look at this diagram:

This has impacted companies as Neeva that have launched a similar UX page where the user asks the machine about something, and then the answer is returned. It’s important to say that ChatGPT and “NeevaAI” are not the same thing, they are completely different technological solution.

The value proposition they do on this functionality named “NeevaAI” is:

  • they includes references to the sources. Neeva shows it as innovation that promotes traceability about what you are looking for.
  • they show current information (as by now, ChatGPT just take into account data till 2021).

So, no many changes to the map. The most disruptive change is the appearance of ChatGPT. The other things we can see are some play games.

  1. The intention of Neeva of being a fast follower, adding “Neeva AI” where they add the traceability of the data sources.
  2. The use of the surname “AI” is a marketing move to facilitate the users to identify what they are doing and trying to be cool. I guess that “search that adds traceability” is not a cool name.

The updated map with the new components highlighted in yellow:

For the future is going to be interesting to see what the Google and Microsoft ,which has invested in OpenAI (ChatGPT) are going to do.

Comparing main search engine market share( https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share ):

Update May / 2023

Bad news for this company that is making drastic and necessary decisions to survive.

Neeva will be shutting down neeva.com and our consumer search product, and shifting to a new area of focus (link to announcement).

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