If you’re going by looks alone, it would be easy to write off most major search engines as all being the same. Minimalist interfaces and one-box design have become standard for search companies attempting to replicate Google’s user appeal.

If you’re looking at product roll-outs, you’re likely to come to the same conclusion. Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and the rest of the gang regularly release updates and enhancements within days (sometimes hours) of each other.

You can judge all you want, but the folks at Dogpile.com want to prove you wrong. The search network recently completed a study with Pennsylvania-based researchers that shows a surprising level of diversity in the top results of major search engines.

The study looked at roughly 12,500 queries on Yahoo, Google, MSN, and Ask Jeeves and found that only 1.1% of results appeared on all four engines. Google had the lowest percentage of unique results; Yahoo, MSN, and Jeeves were all within 3% of each other. Yahoo had the highest percentage of unique results – 71%.

As expected, Dogpile uses the study to push its own services (including the recent addition to MSN to its search results), claiming its results based on a unique combination of consumer click-throughs, overlap, and relevancy out-perform the competition.

We’ll stay neutral on that, but this study does do a good job of highlighting the importance of a multi-engine approach, both as part of search marketing strategy and as a resource for individuals seeking information.

Download the full text as a PDF here and try out their Search Comparison Tool.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005 at 11:32 am and is filed under Search: Innovations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.