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(New Information Almost Daily)
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"Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clark, 1972
Rank Magic is a division of Treloar Associates. More information about Treloar Associates can be found at TreloarAssociates.com.
The Major Search EnginesThe most heavily used search engines have usage figures, provided by Nielsson/NetRatings. The usage percentage is the percent of home and business users who searched at least once on the search engine during a month's time. Since people may search on more than one search engine over the course of a month, the percentages add up to over 100%. Usage results below are as of January, 2003. We will update them as we new figures are released.Information on who powers whom is based on research by Search Engine Watch. |
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About is really a directory, not a search engine, and searches come back in two sections. The first section is On the About Network, and are self-powered from About's directory. The second section is On the Web, powered by Inktomi. | |
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AllTheWeb powers its own results with optional results form
the Open Directory. Its paid results are powered by Overture. AlltheWeb took its name from its original mission to provide the most comprehensive index of the world wide web. |
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AltaVista's usage is 4.0%. It powers its own main listings
with optional listings form LookSmart. Its paid listings come from its
parent, Overture. AltaVista is Spanish for "high view." |
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AOL Search's usage is 18.4%. AOL's main and paid listings are both powered by Google with optional results from Open Directory. | |
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Ask Jeeves' usage is 9.9%. It's main results are powered by
Teoma, and its paid listings are powered by Google. The idea here was to offer a question-answering service; like an online concierge. With that in ind, it was named after P.G. Wodehouse's butler character "Jeeves." |
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The Open Directory (dmoz.org) is really a directory, not a search engine. Searches here are only among listings in its own directory. | |
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Earthlink's usage is 2.0%. It's results are powered by Google. | |
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Google's usage
is 29.5%. Google also powers main results for AOL Search, Yahoo, and
Netscape Search. Google's paid listings also power AOL Search and Netscape
Search. Google is a whimsical spelling of "googol," the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. That, too, is a whimsical overstatement as the universe doesn't contain that many of anything. |
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HotBot allows you to select results from Hotbot itself
(powered by Inktomi), Lycos, Google, or Ask Jeeves. The earliest automated programs that crawl the web looking for web pages were known as "web robots" or bots. HotBot was named for them, even though these web-crawling bots are now usually called "spiders" in reference to the web as their domain. |
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InfoSpace's usage is 4.5%. InfoSpace's results come from Google, Looksmart, Inktomi, About, Overture, AllTheWeb, and Teoma. | |
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LookSmart's usage is 1.7%. Its results are powered by itself
with backup from Inktomi. Its paid listings are its own. Looksmart is named ti imply that to people who use their search engine who are savvy enough to "look smart." |
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Lycos's usage is 2.4%. Its main listings are powered by
AllTHeWeb with optional results from Open Directory. Its paid results are
from Overture. Lycos is named for Lycosidae, the Latin name for the wolf spider family. Unlike other spiders that sit passively in their web, wolf spiders are hunters, actively stalking their prey. |
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MSN Search's usage is 27.6%, making it a close third in
popularity to Google and Yahoo. It gets its search results from LookSmart
and Inktomi. Inktomi is derived from a Lakota Indian legend about a trickster spider character, known for his ability to defeat larger adversaries through wit and cunning. This is another wordplay on crawler technology because crawlers are often called "spiders." |
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Netscape Search's usage is 4.4%. Its main listings are powered by Google with backup by Open Directory, and its paid listings come from Google. | |
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Overture's usage is 4.8%. Its searches are powered by itself
through it's recently acquired AltaVista and AllTHeWeb with backup listings
from Inktomi. It sponsors its own paid listings. Overture sees itself as an introduction to information on the web, just as a musical overture is an introduction to a larger piece. |
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Teoma's main listings are its own, and its paid listings are
from Google. Teoma means "expert" in Gaelic, a reference both to the portion of its search results called "Resources: Link collections from experts and enthusiasts" and to its ability to analyze the web in terms of local communities. |
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Yahoo's usage is 28.9%, close on the heels of Google.
However, since Google powers Yahoo's search results, one can argue that
Yahoo searches are really Google searches. The name Yahoo! is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle," but Yahoo's founders insist they selected the name because they liked the general definition of a yahoo: "rude, unsophisticated, and uncouth." |
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