All Search Engines are the Same

You can always rely on an “expert” to keep you right.

Professional SEO readers will be fascinated to learn that according to a recent BBC news article all the search engines are basically the same. They quote Jupiter analyst Nate Elliot as saying that the “underlying algorithms that powers search are also very similar among the main players”. Google will doubtless be interested to learn that Yahoo and MSN use a PageRank-based algorithm.

Not only that but the results are the same too! Apparently he said “Strip out the brands and just show the results and there is not often a lot of difference. The biggest difference between them is the logo at the top of the page,”.

When you’ve picked your jaw up from the floor you’ll be happy to know that you’ll never need to check a client’s positions in more than one engine ‘cos they’re all the same.

Which internet is he looking at?!? What exactly does he analyse? It certainly isn’t the same one I’m looking at and I seriously doubt that he’s involved in SEO or anything like it. Anyone who’s ever compiled a spreadsheet of search results knows that this is complete tosh.

Makes you wonder about the advice from all the medical and scientific experts they trot out all the time doesn’t it!

Comments

All Search Engines are the Same — 4 Comments

  1. hahaha. And there was me thinking that each search engine looked at your content and your links but evaluated differently. Must just be the fact that I aint a brand – if I was a brand I could go in and mess with all the results.

  2. For small businesses, this is simple not true. I’m 3rd in Google for my key search phase, 8 in Yahoo and 2 in Ask.

    Of course the search engines are going to make “Coke Cola” company number one, you’d expect that.

    Jamie