Kiddle.co is a

web search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

and

online encyclopedia An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, or a digital encyclopedia, is an encyclopedia accessible through the internet. Examples include Wikipedia and ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Digitization of old content In January 199 ...

emphasizing safety for children. Kiddle search is powered by Google Programmable Search Engine and employs SafeSearch with additional filters. Kiddle is powered by Google Custom Search but is not affiliated with

Google LLC Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. It ...

. However, it has been mistaken for a Google product in several news articles and blogs due to its name.

History

Kiddle's domain was registered in 2014. The

.co .co is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Colombia. It is administered by .CO Internet S.A.S.,

domain was chosen by the designers in order to emphasize the search engine's "children only" target audience. Kiddle became very popular on social media in 2016, and even became a meme due to blocking of certain keywords for a short period of time.

Format

Once the user enters topics in the search toolbar, Kiddle returns and ranks its findings, and pushes child-safe content higher in its search results. It appears like a Google Programmable Search Engine window with an outer space stylized theme for their pages. Kiddle presents search results with the first three results being deemed safe and written specifically for kids and "checked by Kiddle editors", the next four being safe sites not written specially for kids, but presented in kid friendly language. The eighth result and anything else beyond are safe sites written for adults but harder to understand for kids. Results presented are filtered through Google SafeSearch. If the user enters terms that are considered inappropriate, a picture of a robot is displayed, telling the user to try again.

Kpedia

Kiddle Encyclopedia (Kpedia) is an online encyclopedia available from their search engine. It lists over 700,000 articles, and is "based on selected content and facts from Wikipedia, rewritten for children." Kiddle positions its Kpedia as an educational resource to be used for "school homework help and general education," and includes their articles in search results. The software is powered by

MediaWiki MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for Media ...

Controversy

In 2016, Kiddle came under criticism for blocking various

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

related search terms, with their rationale being that the keywords were not suitable for small children. Due to public outcry, Kiddle announced they would unblock these keywords.

References

External links

* {{Web search engines Internet search engines