Who Powers Who’s Results in the Search Engines?

Have you often wondered where the results are actually coming from in the search engines? Just how exactly different are the search search engines results? Today, we will cover the following Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask Jeeves) and see who powers whom. So, out of these search engines listed , it may be surprising to the uninformed searcher that many of the search engines are pulling from just a few sources.

First,  Google, both main and paid results are from Google. Google does not have an online directory anymore. Previously powered by DMOZ.org

Search engine AOL is pulling from the same database for its organic (free) and paid paid listings with Google.

Ask.com is getting its paid listings from Google, and the organic listings is from there own database.

MSN powers both organic and paid listings for Yahoo, but Yahoo’s organic search results will differ to MSN.

So, from the 5 search engines reviewed, we can see that there are 3 different databases that are being used amongst the lot. Those being Google, Yahoo, MSN. This really only leaves you with a few choices in the major search engines if you are looking for different results.