Search engines have small results overlap

Across the top four search engines – Google, Yahoo, Ask and Live – only 0.6 percent of 776,435 first-page results were the same, found a recent study by InfoSpace.

There’s a general perception by internet users that all search engines return the same, or similar, results. However, InfoSpace’s report “Different Engines, Different Results” provides key findings that demonstrate how the diversity in the way each engine searches is differentiating results. Given a single query, just 3.6 percent of the top-ranked, non-sponsored links returned were the same across all search engines, found the report.

On average, internet users are using 3 search engines, says InfoSpace. A separate study by J.D. Power and Associates found that as many as 75 percent use multiple sites.

The answer? Metasearch.

“This study reinforces what we at InfoSpace have long known – often users do not find the results they need with any single search engine. Metasearch offers the most robust and efficient search solution to meet their needs,” said Rod Diefendorf, vice president of online and local seach at InfoSpace. “With less than one percent overlap in first page results, there is great value to using a metasearch engine like Dogpile.com to quickly comb through multiple search engines at once for the most relevant results.”

Tags: dogpile.com, metasearch, search engine, search results