Difference between searches

The three sets of searches posted earlier shows how different the results can be. Out of the three searches, there was not one overlap of sites—all sites were unique. According to research commissioned by Dogpile "Different Engines, Different Results" most search engines return unique results. They sugest "the top search engines have built and developed proprietary methods for indexing the web and their ranking of keyword driven search differs greatly", which I think are driven by their account department to return the highest profit for the company by returning sponsored adds as search results.

Dogpile argues by combining search methods from several search sites they arer able to deliver a "comprehensive result set that bring the best results from the top engines to the first results page". (Different Engines, Different Results, 2007)

At first glance all search methods were equal in returning valid results but none were particularly exciting. I suspect this maybe due to the broad nature of the topic I chose to search.

• The meta search tools returned significantly less results that Google
• Dogpiles 4 out of the top 5 returns were paid ads on Goggle searches
• Clusty did not use the Google data base but returned very similar results
  

I found Dogpile search even less exciting as most of the results returned were sponsored adds from Google for sites that tended to be for commercials services. Not very helpful.

Overall, the searches from these three did not result in better quality information, it just a gave a broader response. (Are "Smarter" Meta-Searchers Still Smarter?, 2009)


Reference:
Are "Smarter" Meta-Searchers Still Smarter? (2008). Retrieved April 25, 2009, from http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/MetaSearch.html

Different Engines, Different Results. (2007). Retrieved April 20, 2009 from http://www.dogpile.com/rescuefctb/ws/metasearch/_iceUrlFlag=11?_IceUrl=true