Recommended Kids Search Engine to Keep as Bookmarks

It is absolutely safe to say that there is nothing hidden on the Internet today. Even though in some cases, this can be said to be beneficial as people have access to all sorts of knowledge which makes progress easier but there are some downsides too. When it comes to kids, we cannot be too safe or too cautious. Children are like sponges and they absorb all sorts of knowledge they are exposed too. We as adults have the know-how of what should be done and what shouldn’t be done but unfortunately, kids don’t. If exposed to harmful knowledge at an age that’s not appropriate, they can be negatively impacted for life.

When it comes to adult search engine, there is close to no filter and we can handle it too but kids are curious beings and you don’t want to give them that kind of access before they reach a certain age limit. A kid’s search engine is an amazing tool that is designed to do exactly this! It filters out all the adult content and lets a child be a child.

The minds of the 21st-century kids, especially the ones born in the second decade, are much more internet-savvy then even their parents, sometimes. That can be scary to think about because not all web pages or search engines are designed keeping the usage of an 8-year old in mind. A kid may google “Superman” on Google, hoping to see his favorite superhero, but instead, stumble upon Eminem’s explicit song “Superman”, now that’s something is the opposite of a child-friendly content. Common search engines cater to everyone’s needs – adults and kids alike, which really isn’t safe.

Kids have devices on their disposal all the time. All of these are mostly connected to WiFi in this day and age. Kids mostly know all the passcode and patterns on mom’s iPod, but these devices aren’t safe as the apps and search engines used usually would be meant for normal use, not kids. If you’ve given your kid a device of their own, then letting them browse safely through a search engine that’s meant for them offers a different kind of peace in it. You know for a fact that whatever happens, they’ll never come across something that they shouldn’t read or see… Phew!

 A normal search engine makes no promises about the type of ads it’ll display and obviously it wouldn’t be an extreme level of inappropriate, but it could be dangerous. That’s not a fault on the search engine’s side, because the interface isn’t designed with keeping an 8-year old in mind, it’s there to serve the whole world. You definitely don’t want your kid to see an ad recommended to him something that’s not safe for work for any reason. It could be a news ad with a violent image, or an ad portraying a person wearing inappropriate clothes for a kid to see. With a kid’s search engine, you don’t have to worry about ads.

The devices we own have our accounts logged in on all the apps and websites we visit. If a child gets a hold of one of your personal devices and unlocks it with the pattern he usually sees you enter, there is a whole plethora of things that could go wrong after that. If he opens a common search engine, he’ll be seeing recommended articles which would have been meant to be recommended to you, not your kid. It could be a CNN or BBC article with a graphic image, or any other post having curse words in it which you don’t want your child to learn. Have a kid-oriented search engine installed in your phone and let your child know that whenever he wants to look up something for knowledge, that’s the place to go to.

Kiddle is a kid search engine that promotes safe search, satisfying the requirements that fall into the category of family-friendly, as they efficiently filter the sites that display deceptive (or explicit) content.

The search results are optimized in a thoughtful way to return safe answers for queries of a child.
 

Kiddle’s search results are heavily illustration-focused with large thumbnails accompanying the links, making it a lot easier for kids to know where they want to click to satisfy their curiosity. It serves as visual, easy clues for kids to refer to!

Lastly, Kiddle never collects any information that personally identifies a user as that can usually be unsafe for a kid – their logs are deleted and wiped every day.

KidRex – now having the web address of alarms.org/kidrex, is also one of the highest rated child-safe search engines. It’s powered by Google Custom Search and satisfies all the needs you may have for a kid search engine. It uses the same software as Kiddle – Google Safe Search – and through that, they maintain their own database of websites and webpages which they consider unsafe for their little users to view or come across. If you visit it, the first impression will let you know that it’s clearly meant for kids, with a crayon hand-drawn design for the whole home page.

It’s important to mention a controversy pertaining to KidRex though, which occurred when people came to notice that they’ve blocked words like “gay” on their website, which gives off a homophobic impression for a search engine that’s meant for educational purposes. Upon this, it was heavily criticized by the general public just recently. The word “lesbian” also doesn’t return any results – all you get is an “oops, try again!” from the interface, which could be questionable in the perspectives of a lot of parents out there.

Time magazine, which is one of the most trusted sources, has listed Rex in the top-50 list of websites back in 2013. It was set up and launched back in 2008, and it’s been serving safe results for kids since then. Many of its users aren’t kids anymore and the website is still there, which says something about the quality of their standards. Feel free to surf around in both the platforms to see which one of them you feel like recommending to your kid!

As I have mentioned before, kids are curious beings and curiosity is a hard hunger to feed which is why, even after filtered search engines such as the ones mentioned in this article, don’t leave your kid unsupervised for longer hours as these tools are nowhere near a teacher’s or parent’s supervision and care. Some other precautions that can be taken are exposing them to things after going through the content yourself. There are several games and shows that you can download yourself after analyzing the content that will keep your children occupied while you’re busy. When you select the content ahead, you can select content that will benefit the kids in ways that’s appropriate for their age. You can use such content to keep them occupied and off the search engines while you’re busy so that they can explore the web when you’re available. We can never be too safe when it comes to our children, even though these search engines are safe, but again, nothing can be compared to the actual presence of parents or supervisors. I hope this article was helpful and I wish your children a healthy learning journey.