Let the searcher beware…
There are 4 companies that decide what content you will see when you search the web. They were responsible for 98.7% of the search results delivered in the U.S. in November of 2005.
These companies decide what websites are the most important. They get to tell YOU what sites to look at. Unless you are one of the few who look past the first 30 or so results, you are being driven to the websites THEY choose.
Here is the percentage breakdown:
1. Google (39.8%)
2. Yahoo (29.5%)
3. Microsoft (14.2%)
4. AskJeeves (6.5%)
5. AOL (AOL uses Google’s Results) (8.7%)
Try and run to another search engine for a different option, I dare you.
Don’t run to AOL or Netscape!
Google provides the primary search results for AOL and Netscape (owned by AOL).
Forget Altavista, All the Web, and Inktomi!
Yahoo OWNS Altavista, All the Web (FAST) and Inktomi.
Teoma and IWon won’t help, and neither will Lycos or Hotbot!
AskJeeves OWNS Teoma and IWon,
AskJeeves provides the primary search results to Lycos and Hotbot (owned by Lycos).
What about Excite, Dogpile, Metacrawler and Webcrawler?
These Infospace owned meta search engines get their results by searching the top results of the big boys. So you get a smooshed up version of Google’s, Yahoo’s, MSN’s, and AskJeeve’s search results.
So, next time you search for a human skull toilet brush holder, you can be sure that one of these search giants has decided what sites you will visit
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