Search engines for kids: The big web for small people

The World Wide Web is a truly re­mark­able and fas­cin­at­ing place with so much to discover and learn. However, not everything that we come across online is suitable for children. But this also doesn’t mean that the right approach is to keep children away from the internet al­to­geth­er. By limiting and con­trolling their access, you can help ensure that they can benefit from much that the web has to offer in the form of suitable content for children, while sim­ul­tan­eously learning important media com­pet­en­cies. Safe search engines for kids have this exact purpose – making content available to younger users.  

TA search engine for kids is the ideal in­tro­duc­tion to the online world. But what are the prin­ciples around which such a child-safe search engine is based? And do they actually carry out what it is that they promise to do? We take a close look at the functions of such online resources and introduce the most popular junior safe search engines.

The internet is filled with fas­cin­at­ing ideas, every kind of fact, and limitless amounts of fun. These are all things that are in­ter­est­ing to children too. And that’s not all, it’s the ever-in­creas­ing di­git­isa­tion of the world we live in, it is very important that children learn how to access in­form­a­tion online. Ad­di­tion­ally, children should also learn how the internet and computers work, how to com­mu­nic­ate online, and what you should be cautious about while surfing the web. When you think about it, it also makes a lot of sense for children to learn how to dif­fer­en­ti­ate and identify the dif­fer­ence between good and bad content, as well as how to recognise and deal with harmful things online like malware, viruses, phishing, etc.

Media com­pet­ency is a skill that, with the in­creas­ing de­pend­ency on the internet, is becoming more and more in­dis­pens­able. This involves being able to un­der­stand and evaluate media and its content. The current debate that is raging around the topic of so-called ‘Fake News’ and ‘al­tern­at­ive facts’ are demon­strat­ing each day how important it is to have a re­spons­ible approach to the media. In order to be able to identify clearly incorrect facts and un­re­li­able news, you need to know what signals and sources to look out for. Of course, this doesn’t just apply to how you approach news online, it goes for anything that you come across in news­pa­pers, on tele­vi­sion, and on the radio. Fur­ther­more, children should also learn how media like this is brought about and how it is struc­tured. How does a website work? What is a blog? The reasons outlined above go as far as to show why it is important to allow children to be active online; why not go so far as to create a website with your own son or daughter?

The World Wide Web is, of course, not just made up of only positive content and edu­ca­tion­al websites. A large part of the internet has to do with por­no­graphy, violence, and gambling – things that are in no way suitable for children. On top of this, there are other aspects of the online world that are dangerous for everyone, adults included. Viruses, which can be sent via email, malware, and phishing in­ter­faces that can access and steal personal data. It goes without saying that if grown-ups have a lot of trouble identi­fy­ing dangerous content like this, then the same applies to children, or worse. This is the main reason why there has to be a certain amount of control and re­stric­tions for children accessing the internet.  Kid safe search engines can be a great aid in com­batting this. Such search engines make it possible for children to find websites that are suitable for their age group and for example, can help them with their school homework. Of course, they should also be fun to use as well.

Parents should not be relying on the internal mon­it­or­ing policy of the search engines. It goes without saying that the parent or guardian should be re­spons­ible for con­trolling their children’s access to the internet: this includes the content that the child or children see, as well as the contact that they might have with anyone online. Another important aspect of the online world that needs to be con­trolled is the amount of time that kids spend online. Therefore, it’s re­com­men­ded that parents set a time limit for surfing the web, do not leave children un­at­ten­ded while they surf the web, and utilise ad­di­tion­al security measures. Child pro­tec­tion software that you can install on your PC or laptop can filter internet pages and results. But you should also remember that no software can offer fully com­pre­hens­ive pro­tec­tion.

Search engines for kids work with so-called whitel­ists – this is where websites that are seen as being harmless for children are listed. Con­versely, a blacklist contains the exact opposite. This is where content that should not be accessed by any means is listed. This leads to a dilemma of sorts: should the sites that you allow your child to see only consist of those that are on the whitelist, or should all websites be per­miss­ible, as long as they don’t feature on the blacklist? Given that the main idea behind child pro­tec­tion is to ensure safety and that the World Wide Web is de­vel­op­ing so fast that it is im­possible to maintain a com­pre­hens­ive and au­thor­it­at­ive blacklist, safe search engines for kids tend to base them­selves on the whitelist. 

Most normal search engines use their own web­crawl­ers. They scan the entire web and analyse the results. With the likes of safe search for kids, this is usually done manually. The people behind these search engine manually add websites to the whitelist and check whether they are still live and relevant. This editorial su­per­vi­sion means that the search engine functions more as a web catalogue, similar to what would have been around in the early days of the internet. Thus, most search engines for kids function sim­ul­tan­eously as a portal. Alongside their actual search function, they also recommend par­tic­u­lar webpages, as well as their own content in the form of games and courses about how to use a search engine correctly.

In order for a website to be entered into a whitelist, there are certain criteria that such search engines require them to meet. Alongside the type and structure of the content, things like data pro­tec­tion, ad­vert­ising, and paid services all play a role when it comes to eval­u­ation of these websites. Websites for children should be safe and secure insofar as they do not pass on any sensitive data or trick visitors into parting with their money. Ideally, there should be no ad­vert­ising at all, and if there is, then it should be content that is ap­pro­pri­ate for children and make it very clear that it’s an ad. But even search engines for kids don’t offer full and com­pre­hens­ive pro­tec­tion for children. It’s always possible that links will lead young visitors to other content that is not as suitable for people in their age bracket. However, with the com­bin­a­tion of child pro­tec­tion software and adult su­per­vi­sion, search engines for kids offer a great pos­sib­il­ity to make the internet a very useful resource for young children.

The search engines on offer are in part run by private companies and in other cases by not-for-profit or­gan­isa­tions. Several of them have been around for quite some time and have media education experts involved in the running of them.

Powered by Google Custom Search, KidRex is a safe search for kids that also uses Google Safe­Search tech­no­logy. This allows the search engine to filter out content that is deemed to be sexually explicit and remove them from any list of search results. However the ‘About’ section of the KidRex website makes sure to state that “No filter is 100 percent accurate”, it goes on to say, however, that Safe­Search should be able to get rid of “most in­ap­pro­pri­ate material”. Along with the Google Safe­Search function, KidRex also has its own list of web pages as well as keywords that should be kept well away from the eyes of children. The web service claims to have re­search­ers that test the search engine on a daily basis with the intention of con­stantly evolving and op­tim­ising. At the same, time they include a dis­claim­er that they cannot guarantee that these re­search­ers will find each and every in­ap­pro­pri­ate website and that there is always a chance that “in­ap­pro­pri­ate sites will sometimes slip through the cracks.” KidRex also offers a very useful service that allows users to submit a webpage removal request.

Similar to KidRex, Kiddle is another junior safe search that utilises both Google’s Safe­Search and Cus­tom­Search. This helps it to ensure that explicit or deceptive content is kept far away from the results page.  While it’s a search engine that is powered by these Google search functions, it is not actually af­fil­i­ated with Google Inc. Kiddle has also es­tab­lished a specific method of or­gan­ising and ordering the results page. The top three results (1 – 3) are safe sites and pages written spe­cific­ally for children. These have often been spe­cific­ally chosen by Kiddle editors. After this usually come safe sites that may not have been written spe­cific­ally for young audiences but still have content that is easy enough for them to be able to un­der­stand. Anything after this will be sites written for grown-up audiences but are still subject to the Google safe search criteria. Kiddle goes as far as to say that the reason they have .co as their domain instead of .com is to emphasise how it is a ‘children only’ service, i.e. that they are solely ori­ent­ated towards a young audience. There are also other features of Kiddle that make it a great safe search for kids. These include large thumb­nails that make it easier to scan the results of a search and find the one that you are actually looking for. They provide an increased visual aspect to word heavy activ­it­ies like using a search engine. Kiddle also displays its results in a large Arial font, which makes it more readable for all users. One thing that may be of great interest to parents is Kiddle’s privacy policy – to ex­pli­citly not collect any per­son­ally iden­ti­fi­able in­form­a­tion and to delete all of its logs every 24 hours. 

For parents, guardians, teachers, etc. out there that feel that Google’s safe search functions are not adequate, there is the option of ‘Kid’s Search’ that uses extra filters. Community feedback also helps to ensure greater security. ‘Kid’s Search’ has a directory where kid-friendly links are listed, with each site having been peer-reviewed for ap­pro­pri­ate content, use­ful­ness, and fun. Users have the option of both sug­gest­ing as well as reporting sites. ‘Kid’s Search’ is well aware that it cannot guarantee security once someone clicks on a link that brings them to another website. However, it does recommend in­stalling JRSurfer, its partner browser that is designed to be safe for children. Along with offering safe browsing, JRSurfer (also known as Junior Surfer) claims to block 99% of internet ads, pop-ups, and click bait links, while sim­ul­tan­eously being kid friendly with easy-to-use controls and options.

Another child-friendly search engine that is powered by Google custom search is Safe­Search­Kids, whose name clearly denotes its functions. Something that stands out about this site is the tabs on the homepage labelled Safe Search, Safe Images, Safe Wiki, and Safe Videos. This means that younger users can search what Google and Wikipedia have to offer directly from this site. Aside from these search functions, this page also offers helpful guides relating to social media safety, cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, as well as general online safety. One downside of this site is the presence of plenty of targeted ads based on the use of cookies.

Boolify is a very in­ter­est­ing project. It is a website that is supposed to explain to children how search engines and Boolean operators are supposed to work. The Drag & Drop function allows children to add the operators to a search bar and decide exactly how a search should be done. In principle, the search engine is just a Google Custom Search with an in­teg­rated Safe­Search: this is a filter offered by Google primarily with the aim of excluding por­no­graph­ic content. Ad­di­tion­ally, the Boolify team put together a list of banned keywords. If users attempt to search for one of these keywords then they will be informed of the fact that the term in question is one which is blocked.

The list of results remains quite com­pre­hens­ive while con­tain­ing no websites that may have content that is deemed harmful to children. It is likely that the in­form­a­tion that is to be found in Wikipedia articles or on news websites will be quite difficult to un­der­stand. Given that we are mainly dealing with a Google search, it is in­ev­it­able that some of the results that are provided will contain links to sites with ques­tion­able content. For this reason, it is advisable that children only visit these sites while under adult su­per­vi­sion. This will also allow the adult in question to answer any question that the child might have per­tain­ing to this Google operated search engine. When it comes to de­vel­op­ing media com­pet­ency, Boolify is a great tool for learning how to use the functions of a search engine.

The various search engines outlined above have different in­di­vidu­al strengths and weak­nesses. Some offer more safety, others offer better visual aspects, while others use no adverts on their site. We hope that this article has given you an overview of some of those on offer and has allowed you to make a more informed choice about which one to choose.