Top 5 Search Engines in the UAE by Usage (2026)

Yandex's yearly share of UAE searches rose from 0.04% in 2021 to 1.0% for January to August 2026, enough for third place. In Russia, where it is based, Yandex handles 70.32% of searches. Russian is one of the five languages besides Arabic that UAE courts use.

#1 Google

Google's share of UAE searches peaked at 97.41% in 2019 and has drifted down since, to 95.49% for January to August 2026. In August 2026 it sent 95.71% of search engine referrals, on Statcounter's UAE search engine data. Across the 12 months to August 2026 it averaged 95.8%, against 95.62% a year earlier.

The UAE sits above the world average. Google's worldwide share was 91.02% in August 2026, on Statcounter's global search engine data, with Bing at 4.55%.

Google by device

Phones are where Google is hardest to beat. Its UAE share over the 12 months to August 2026 was:

• Mobile: 98.49%
• Tablet: 97.13%
• Desktop: 91.35%, up from 88.61% a year earlier

Bing lost 2.54 points of desktop share over the same two periods, which matches most of Google's 2.74-point gain.

What Google's share means for UAE SEO

Most of the measurable search traffic in the UAE is Google traffic, so Google Search Console is the first report to set up for a UAE site. Filter its performance report by country (United Arab Emirates) to see UAE queries, clicks and positions apart from your other markets.

Language is the second setting. Arabic is the official language, and the government's UAE fact sheet notes that road signs and shop signs appear in both Arabic and English. A site with both versions should mark them with hreflang, following Google's localized versions guide:

• ar-AE for the Arabic version aimed at the UAE.
• en-AE for the English version aimed at the UAE.
• x-default for the page that serves everyone else.

#2 Bing

Bing's desktop share in the UAE reached 9.47% in 2024, its best year on record there, and has fallen since: 8.67% in 2025 and 6.72% for January to August 2026. Across all devices it sent 2.42% of search referrals in August 2026 and 2.75% over the last 12 months, down from 3.07% in the 12 months before.

Bing's UAE traffic comes from desktops. On Statcounter's UAE desktop data it took 6.9% of searches over the 12 months to August 2026. On UAE mobile it took 0.26%, and on tablets 1.26%.

Bing's index also feeds two other engines in this top 5: Yahoo and DuckDuckGo. Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo together sent 2.87% of UAE search referrals in August 2026.

What Bing means for UAE SEO

• Verify the site in Bing Webmaster Tools. It covers the index that also serves Yahoo and DuckDuckGo's traditional links.
• Send changed URLs through IndexNow. Bing and Yandex both take IndexNow pings, so one key file and one request reach the second and third engines in the UAE.
• Check desktop landing pages first. A B2B site whose buyers search from office PCs sees more Bing traffic than the 2.42% average suggests.

#3 Yandex

Yandex sent 1.28% of UAE search referrals in August 2026, and its best month in the last two years was June 2026, at 1.37%. Its yearly share was 0.1% in 2022, 0.23% in 2023, 0.38% in 2024 and 0.58% in 2025, higher each year. It passed Yahoo on the year in 2025 and has beaten Yahoo in every month since February 2025.

Yandex runs its own crawler and index; it does not borrow Bing's results. Its home market is Russia, where it took 70.32% of searches in August 2026 on Statcounter's Russia data. Statcounter assigns each visit to a country by the visitor's location, so tourists' searches count too.

Dubai received 2.89 million overnight visitors from the CIS and Eastern Europe in 2025, 15% of all its international arrivals, according to the Dubai Media Office.

On phones Yandex is the second search engine in the UAE. Over the 12 months to August 2026 it took 0.86% of mobile searches, against Bing's 0.26%, and 0.73% of desktop searches.

What Yandex means for UAE SEO

A UAE business with Russian-speaking customers (real estate, hospitality, private banking) needs Russian pages before Yandex matters. Once those exist:

• Mark them ru-AE in the hreflang set.
• Add the site to Yandex Webmaster, Yandex's equivalent of Search Console.
• Reuse the IndexNow key you set up for Bing. Yandex's IndexNow documentation confirms it accepts the same protocol.

#4 Yahoo

Yahoo was the second search engine in the UAE in 2009, with 7.9% of searches against Bing's 1.77%. Bing passed it in 2015, 1.67% to 1.6%, and Yahoo has not caught up since. It sent 0.25% of UAE searches in August 2026 and 0.31% over the 12 months to August 2026.

Yahoo does not run its own web index. Its help page on how Yahoo Search ranks content, published on its Maktoob Arabic site, says results "are generated by an algorithm run by Microsoft Bing". A page that ranks on Bing ranks on Yahoo in much the same place.

Yahoo is a desktop habit. It took 0.54% of desktop searches in August 2026, 0.13% on tablets and 0.02% on phones. For SEO, Yahoo needs no separate work beyond Bing Webmaster Tools.

#5 DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo first showed a measurable UAE share in 2014, at 0.01%, and has held between 0.17% and 0.25% every year since 2018. It sent 0.20% of UAE searches in August 2026 and 0.18% over the 12 months to August 2026, down from 0.24% a year earlier.

Its share is almost the same on every device: 0.17% of desktop, 0.22% of mobile and 0.20% of tablet searches in August 2026. On phones it tied Bing that month.

DuckDuckGo's help page on its results says it draws on Bing for "more traditional links and images", plus its own crawler, DuckDuckBot, and specialist sources such as Wikipedia. As with Yahoo, Bing Webmaster Tools and IndexNow cover it.

Which search engines miss the UAE top 5?

Mail.ru was sixth in August 2026, with 0.05% of UAE searches. The engines searchers in other markets ask about sit lower:

Baidu has never passed 0.04% of UAE searches in any year since 2009. Huawei's Petal Search reached 0.23% in 2022 and has faded to 0.02%.

How the ranking changes on desktop, mobile and tablet

The engine in second place depends on the device. On desktop, Bing is a clear second. On phones, Yandex takes second place, and Bing falls to third:

The table uses 12-month averages to September 2025 to August 2026, from Statcounter's UAE tablet data and the desktop and mobile pages linked above. A single month moves more: Yandex beat Bing on UAE tablets in August 2026, 2.28% to 1.13%.

For a site that sells to consumers on phones, the practical top 3 is Google, Yandex and Bing. For a B2B site read on office desktops, Bing sends about 1 in 15 search clicks.

How has search in the UAE changed since 2009?

Google has led every year since Statcounter's UAE series began in 2009, when it had 88.96%. The main change underneath it is who owns second place:

Other names came and went. Babylon and Conduit, toolbar search engines bundled with free software, took 0.86% and 0.33% in 2012 and were gone by 2015. Ask Jeeves peaked at 0.83% in 2014.

Google AI Overviews and AI Mode in Arabic

Google launched AI Overviews across the Middle East and North Africa, and in Arabic worldwide, on May 20, 2025. The Google MENA blog announcement says the summaries work on mobile and desktop. AI Mode followed in English in the region in August 2025. In October 2025 Google added it in 36 more languages, including Modern Standard Arabic, as Arab News reported.

Google's own AI Mode expansion post says people ask AI Mode questions "nearly three times longer than traditional searches". A click from an AI Overview still arrives from a Google page, so referral trackers such as Statcounter count it as Google. AI answers can lower the number of clicks per search without lowering Google's share.

Do AI chatbots replace search engines in the UAE?

Not by referral volume. Statcounter tracks AI chatbots as a separate series from search engines, and the two shares cannot be added together. In August 2026 ChatGPT sent 81.53% of AI chatbot referrals in the UAE, on Statcounter's UAE AI chatbot data. Google Gemini sent 10.01%, Claude 3.24%, Microsoft Copilot 2.74% and Perplexity 2.13%.

ChatGPT's share is falling. It sent 87.76% of UAE chatbot referrals in August 2025, and dropped as low as 73.82% in April 2026, the month Gemini reached 12.54%. Gemini gained in Vietnam and Thailand over the same period, per our AI search use in Southeast Asia data.

Cloudflare counts part of this traffic as search. Its 2025 Year in Review for the UAE put Google at 94.3%, Bing at 3.4%, OpenAI at 0.6%, Yandex at 0.5% and Brave at 0.4% of search engine referrals. On that count OpenAI sends more UAE search traffic than Yandex does.

How Statcounter and Cloudflare measure search share

Both trackers count referrals: a visit to a website that arrived from a search results page. Neither counts searches typed.

Statcounter's FAQ says it bases its stats on more than 3 billion page views a month across more than 1 million member sites. It also says figures can be revised for 45 days after first publication. The August 2026 numbers here were read from Statcounter's CSV downloads on September 23, 2026, and can still change until mid-October.

For the same data on six Southeast Asian markets, see our Southeast Asia SEO statistics.

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UAE search engines: frequently asked questions

Does Statcounter publish search share for Dubai alone?

No. Statcounter publishes search engine share for the United Arab Emirates as a whole, so the figures above cover all seven emirates.

Does Google Search Console show Bing or Yandex traffic?

No. Search Console reports Google Search only. Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo data comes from Bing Webmaster Tools, and Yandex data from Yandex Webmaster. Your analytics tool shows referrals from all of them.

Which search engine should a UAE site optimise for first?

Google, since it sent 95.71% of UAE search referrals in August 2026. Bing Webmaster Tools and IndexNow come next, because together they reach Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and Yandex.