Finding the newest and greatest in the world of “eco-friendly” can be a challenge.  Traditional search engines are often populated with results that just don’t meet the needs of today’s environmentally-conscious web surfer.

We found dozens of search engines that filter their results with green intentions in mind.  To test their results, we did a generic search on each for “gadgets” and posted the top 3 results.

Here is the list of the ones found to be excellent:

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1. Green Maven

Green Maven does all the pre-greening for you. So, for example, you can search “shoes” and you’ll only be shown vegan, or recycled, or vintage shoes.  It feeds stories from Inhabitat and presumably other green blogs, though at the time that I reviewed, all of the front page stories were from Inhabitat.

Search for “Gadgets”: EcoShopper, SustainableisGood, Inhabitat


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2. Green Planet Search

Treehugger loves the layout and the fact that it’s flash-driven. It is pretty gorgeous, actually. Why shouldn’t search look good?  Be careful where you click, though.  Being flash, it is very touchy.  Wherever you click, there you are.

Search for “Gadgets”: Care2, Inhabitat, LazyEnvironmentalist

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3. Green Link Central

Scours the green web.  The results delivered seem to be a mix of green-related websites and standard Google results with an emphasis on green.  Take a look at the results below and you’ll see the real world and green world blending together:

Search for “Gadgets”: Wikipedia: Gadgets, Outdoor Eco Products, Wikipedia: Inspector Gadget


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4. Gooef

Black, another Google CSE that enhances the results with a green spin.  The searches we did gave excellent results that would be relevant to any green-hearted searcher.

Search for “Gadgets”: Treehugger: Eco-friendly Gadgets, Inhabitat, Treehugger: Greener Gadgets

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5. Greenona

…is not a Google custom search! It’s also distinctly social with a massive tag cloud display and helpful sections such as “top 500 searches” and “top 100 clicked results”. Is Technorati behind this? No, it’s Search Blox Online Media. Their goal is “to provide highly relevant clustered search results”. It’s got prominent social bookmarking features, too. Cool.

Search for “Gadgets”: Greenthinkers: Gadgets Archive, Greenthinkers: Eco-Gadgets, Great Green Gadgets

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6. Eco Seek

Eco Seek has auctions, a blog, green tips, and a strong community vibe. One of the best.  Delivers an eclectic array of products for any world-loving searcher.

Because it is tied into merchants and not directly to the entire web, the results are internal.  A search for “Gadgets” yields Bamboo Pot Scrapers.

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7. Eco Tourism Search

A narrowly targeted green search engine is the Eco Tourism Launchpad, which helps you green your travel plans.

Search for “Gadgets”: Treehugger: Greener Gadgets, Keetsa, Treehugger: Bicycle


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Last month, WebEcoist published a list of 27 great search engines, many of whom donate some of their profits to green causes.  While all are doing the world a service in some way, only these 7 enhanced their results to focus on green sites, eco-friendly products, and environmental news.

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Read more about Green Innovations on this blog.