Aggregator Dogpile Says Not All Search Alike

Dogpile.com, the most heavily visited meta-search engine on the Web, has said it would add Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) relatively new MSN Search tool to the array of engines it uses and also said that contrary to popular belief, different search engines provide vastly different results.

The addition of MSN Search means Dogpile now has access to results from four of the leading search engines, as it already was using results from Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Ask Jeeves.

Rather than searching the Web directly, Dogpile sends queries to those search engines and then returns results that are an aggregation of the top results from each site. It returns results based in part on how many click-throughs certain results have received in the past.

Differing Results

The addition of MSN Search came as Dogpile, which is owned by InfoSpace.com, released results of a study that it commissioned, along with professors from the University of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania State University, on search results overlapping.

That study, which was conducted during July, not long after both Google and Yahoo announced updates to their indexes of Web pages, found that of the first-page results from 12,570 searches on the top four search engines, just 1.1 percent were shared by all four sites. About 11 percent of results were shared by at least two search engines, but nearly 85 percent of results were unique to one of the four engines.

The study did not look at the overall results returned, but rather just the first page. Dogpile noted that the vast majority of users never click onto a second page or results, let alone get deep into the returned pages.

Overlap is minimal on both Web and sponsored results, according to the study.

The study results could have far-reaching implications for search. The researchers said that the typical Web user employs an average of nearly three search engines each month, which is another indication that users aren't easily finding what they want, despite massive improvements in search technology.

The study noted that users might turn to different search engines because one is closer at hand, rather than out of frustration over results. For instance, a user already on the Yahoo portal might simply plug a query into the ubiquitous search box rather than go to his or her favorite search site.

Room for More Advertising

Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li said despite the results of the study, the difficulty in differentiating search engines is what has led to the massive war of attrition over features and related services such as Web e-mail.

"Search engines know that building loyalty just on search alone is very difficult," Li told the E-Commerce Times. "There are other avenues that are much more likely to keep a user coming back to a search site or portal than its search technology."

That's true even though Google built its brand by creating a more vigorous search tool, she added, with many users apparently believing that Yahoo and others have since largely caught up to Google on pure search technology.

One thing the search study from Dogpile cannot measure, of course, is the true relevance or usefulness of results. In other words, though they might differ, the search results might all provide a user with satisfactory information.

There are also implications for marketers, since the Dogpile study found that as many as a quarter of search results pages looked at had no sponsored results listed, meaning that potentially thousands of pages are going un-populated with advertising that could bring in important revenue to search companies.

Other findings from the study included: Just 7 percent of the top ranked Web results were the same across all search engines for any given search query and in no case did all agree on the top three results.

Win for MSN

Being included alongside the three main independent search engines on Dogpile was seen by many observers as a victory for Microsoft, especially since it arrived somewhat late at the search dance, unveiling its standalone search engine earlier this year and still working out improvements to put it on equal footing with Google and Yahoo.

Meanwhile, some see the next pitched battle over search dominance as featuring Microsoft's MSN going head-to-head with Google.

In a research note published after Microsoft's analysts day, Piper Jaffray's Safa Raschtchy said that Microsoft appears to be making great strides and seems poised to roll out search improvements both on the Web and on the desktop. He cited Microsoft's work on question-and-answer style search results and its push to make desktop search more user friendly.

However, Raschtchy said that Google's deep well of technical talent and search expertise could likely counter quickly any Microsoft rollout that users find appealing, setting up the prospect of a continued war over features and search technology that will in turn require Yahoo, Google and others to continue to invest heavily in capital equipment and research.