Which search engines are best for research?
AI Visibility Ranking
Brands ordered by GenRank score for this question.
DirectionalQuestion-level figures rest on at most 6 answers per brand, so treat them as direction, not a verdict; the category ranking is the number to judge by. Scores are for the week of 2026-11-08.
| Rank | Brand | Named by | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Google Scholar | 6/6 | 100.0 |
| 2 | Semantic Scholar | 6/6 | 74.4 |
| 3 | BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) | 5/6 | 51.3 |
| 4 | PubMed | 5/6 | 47.2 |
| 5 | IEEE Xplore | 4/6 | 37.9 |
| 6 | JSTOR | 4/6 | 30.6 |
| 7 | Internet Archive | 3/6 | 30.5 |
| 8 | Consensus | 3/6 | 28.7 |
| 9 | CORE | 3/6 | 24.5 |
| 10 | Perplexity | 2/6 | 21.9 |
Sources these answers cited
The sites each surface's answer cited this week. The logos are the surfaces that cited the site.
| Source | Cited by |
|---|---|
| exa.aiThe 12 best search engines for research papers in 2026, by field | Exa Blog |   2 surfaces |
| paperpile.comThe best academic search engines [Update 2026] | 2 surfaces |
| pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.govreference · About - PubMed |   2 surfaces |
| scholar.google.comreference · About Google Scholar | 2 surfaces |
| about.jstor.orgJSTOR platform features, tools, and resources - About JSTOR | 1 surfaces |
| analyticsinsight.netTop AI Search Engines Ranked for Smarter Searches in 2026 | 1 surfaces |
| aofirs.org11 Best Free Search Engines for Academic Research in 2026 |  1 surfaces |
| archive.orgarchive.org | 1 surfaces |
| base-search.netbase-search.net | 1 surfaces |
| campusfreshers.com5 Best Search Engines for Students in 2026 (Beyond Just Googling It) | 1 surfaces |
| consensus.appconsensus.app | 1 surfaces |
| core.ac.ukcore.ac.uk | 1 surfaces |
25 more
Rank trend
Rank trends are drawn once two weekly editions under the same methodology exist. Only the first edition is in so far.