Contrary to popular perception, search engine results are not largely identical. In fact, first page results from the major players in web search are dramatically different and overlap by as little as one per cent.
The findings of a study of Google, Yahoo!, Windows Live and Ask indicate that web site owners need to ensure metadata, keywords and content are optimised to ensure the best spread of ranking across the search engines. The study, titled, Different Engines, Different Results, was conducted by researchers from The Pennsylvania State University and Queensland University of Technology on behalf of metasearch engine, Dogpile.com and InfoSpace Inc., a leading developer of proprietary metasearch technologies.
Key findings highlight the value of metasearch and include:
· only 0.6 percent of 776,435 first-page search results were the same across the top four Web search engines;
· between 38 and 46 percent of all searches fail to elicit a click on a first-page search result, don't meet users needs and drive users to try additional engines;
· web searchers on average use three search engines a month;
· and search result rankings differ significantly across major search engines; only 3.6 percent of the number-one ranked, non-sponsored search results were the same across all search engines in a given query.
The study expanded on a similar overlap study conducted in 2005, finding that the major engines produce even fewer of the same results today than they did just two years ago. “There is a perception that most search engines function similarly and deliver the same results, but that is not what these result show,” said Dr. Jim Jansen of The Pennsylvania State University. “In fact, the engines are increasingly diverging in their approach to searching the Web. For some searches, users are obviously missing quality results.”
The study reinforced what InfoSpace has known for a long time: often users do not find the results they need with any single search engine, said Rod Diefendorf, vice president of online and local search at InfoSpace. “Metasearch offers the most robust and efficient search solution to meet their needs. 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,” he added.
Another recent study confirms that Internet users are seeking out multiple engines and greatly value the benefits of metasearch. The J.D. Power and Associates research found that nearly 75 percent of Internet subscribers use multiple search engines, with 44 percent of those customers using multiple search engines because each one has better sources depending on customer needs.
Go to http://www.infospaceinc.com/overlapstudy to download the full overlap study Different Engines, Different Results: A Research Study by Dogpile.com.
* A metasearch engine does not compile its own index of results, it aggregates results by sending the user’s request to a number of other search engines.
Metadata is information that describes other data. On the web, metadata relates to such things as keywords, page names, titles and descriptions etc.
