WebProNews

First page results on Google, Yahoo, Windows Live and Ask overlap less than one percent according to a new study from InfoSpace, "Different Engines, Different Results".

"This study reinforces what we at InfoSpace have long known - often users do not find the results they need with any single search engine. Metasearch offers the most robust and efficient search solution to meet their needs," said Rod Diefendorf, vice president of online and local search at InfoSpace.

"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."

The study found that only 0.6 percent of 776,435 first-page results were the same on all top four search engines. Between 38 and 46 percent of all searches did not produce clicks on first- page results.

On average searchers use three search engines a month. Search result rankings were different on all the major search engines with just 3.6 percent of the number one ranked non-sponsored search results were the same on all search engines in a given query.

"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."