A meta search engine combines results from multiple search engines, allowing for a wider range of results. MetaCrawler was the first successful one, while DogPile won Best Meta Search Engine in 2003. Some meta engines, like KartOO and Clusty, format results in innovative ways. The meta search engine market provides an opportunity to enter without competing directly with Google or Yahoo!.
A meta search engine is a search engine that queries many different search engines and combines the results of all of them, or displays the results separately but in one place. It doesn’t actually crawl the web itself, like a real search engine, but instead relies on data collected by others. The meta search engine has been around for nearly as long as search engines themselves, and some people find them preferable to using just one, as they allow for a wider range of results.
The first successful metasearch engine was MetaCrawler, launched in 1995 at the University of Washington. MetaCrawler searches many major search engines, including Google, MSN, Ask Jeeves, About, Yahoo! and LookSmart. It was bought by InfoSpace in 1997 and joined the network in 2000. While not much has changed over the years, MetaCrawler continues to be one of the most popular metasearches, probably due to its age.
A number of traditional search engines have also transformed into meta engines over the years. WebCrawler, for example, began life as an actual search engine that crawled the web, when it was owned by Excite. InfoSpace also bought WebCrawler and turned it into a meta search engine, not long after MetaCrawler became part of the InfoSpace network, and around the same time the Excite search engine itself was bought by them and also turned.
One of the most popular meta engines in the past was DogPile, which won the Best Meta Search Engine award in 2003. It allows for great customization, allowing users to choose exactly which search engines they want to include in their meta search. DogPile has also added a number of special search features, such as a yellow pages search when relevant, to make it even more useful for users.
Over the past few years, the meta search engine has transformed from simply collecting search results into formatting them in new and innovative ways. KartOO, for example, links results by keywords, creating a visual cluster map that allows the user to find the area of interest and narrow searches based on that. Clusty, owned by Vivisimo, is another one that seeks to differentiate itself based on results and how they are organised. Clusty bills itself as a Web 2.0 meta search engine and uses clusters, which are categories on the side of search results that can help users search the exact web space they want to search.
The search metaengine has evolved a lot in the last ten years and it is likely that it will continue to evolve in the next decade as well. The search market is a lucrative one, and this type of meta search provides an opportunity to enter the market without having to try to compete directly with crawling engines like Google or Yahoo!, which have substantial resources at their disposal and a strong edge.
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