Welcome to the world of meta

Did you know there is life beyond Google?

It’s true.

Meta search engines are a strange topic because many of these sites started as direct competitors to Google back in the late 90s and early 2000s. Investigating metasearch and meta search engines is like walking through the history of search. But if meta search engines confuse you like Inception had confused us, this guide is for you. We have put together this no-fluff article on what meta search engines are, where they matter, and where they don’t.

Join us as we explore this fascinating subject!

What is a meta search engine?

A meta search engine is a specialized form of search engine that aggregates results from the data of other search engines. Meta search engines can either be generalized, as most search engines like Google are, or specialized in a topic or vertical. That’s so meta, bro! 

What does a meta search engine do?

Meta search engines crawl other search engines, online databases, and other sources of online information. They then collate and index the various search results that they gather and rank them using their proprietary search technology. Some use their methods of ranking results and clustering results while others rely on the search engines they crawled for ranking.

Ironically, the technology behind the early meta search engines has been crucial in the development of database technology and with the proprietary search engines found on individual web sites – such as Amazon.com and eBay.

How do meta search engines help with SEO research?

Meta search engines can offer a goldmine of valuable customer and keyword data to SEOs and SEMs. Meta search engines can offer lots of great tools to SEOs, such as:

  • Search results clustering – search term grouping based on phrases and word derivations. This is a great way to brainstorm while conducting keyword research and is especially useful for narrow client verticals that the meta search engineservices.
  • Comparing engine results – sites such as  Langreiter.com compares Google and Yahoo results, or Fuzzfind, which compares social media and search. The value of comparing terms between social media and search engines is clear.
  • Meta search engines are also excellent sources to define overall keywords linguistically and textually. You can see how nearly everyone uses a keyword or a term, instead of just Google.

A meta search engine list: 8 Examples

There are several meta search engine lists out there, but this list of the best meta search engines should give you an idea of what they are all about:

  1. DogPile: https://www.dogpile.com/. Dogpile is one of the oldest general meta search engines, that pulls results from various search engines like Google, Yandex and Bing. It has been through several acquisitions and university studies
  2. Yippy: https://yippy.com/ – originally developed by IBM, IBM Watson powers Yippy and is known for its cluster method of search.
  3. Startpage: https://www.startpage.com/ Startpage claims to be “the world’s most private search engine. Originally known as IxQuick, this engine is notable for maintaining European Union privacy standards.
  4. Surfwax: http://lookahead.surfwax.com Another early meta search engine, Surfwax and it’s earlier iteration Lookahead enjoys its claim to fame due to site-specific search indexing and local site search usability.
  5. Mamma: https://www.mamma.com/ A specialized meta search engine that provides business reviews.
  6. Creafy: http://creafy.com/ A private meta search engine still in development.
  7. Hipmunk: http://hipmunk.com A travel aggregating meta search engine that pulls travel reviews, websites, and booking information.
  8. Metacrawler: http://metacrawler.com The second meta search engine created, right before the defunct  Searchsavvy. This was originally a project out of the University of Washington and was an essential landmark in the development of semantic search. Now metacrawler is owned by Infospace Inc.

Meta Search Engine Optimization – Is it Important?

Frankly, not that much. According to Statcounter.com, 86% of US search traffic goes through Google. Since most of your traffic will go through Google, most of your SEO campaign efforts should be directed towards creating quality content and optimizing for Google search. Since Google is the world leader, even the various meta search engines consider how Google demands that websites format and optimize. Google is still the king of search at the end of the day, and that is where most of your SEO resources should go.

There are always exceptions to rules, however. For example, if you a travel agency selling vacation promotions and packages, you would want to optimize for sites like Hipmunk (as well as traditional travel SEO optimization). On the other hand, contractors running a small business anticipate traffic coming from homeowners searching for home improvement professionals. As a result, they should spend some effort optimizing for a meta search engine like Trust Mamma. Always optimize for where your customers are.

This means that if 86% percent of your traffic comes from Google, 86% of your SEO resources should go to Google SEO. The last 14% of your resources should be used for meta search engines.

Getting Your Meta Search Engine Questions Answered

Here at Sandbad SEO, we feel that you should leave no stone unturned with your SEO education. The SEO world is always changing, and being armed with the knowledge of how meta search engines work will help you find your customers and help them. Check out our SEO services and learn why SEO matters.

Feel free to chat with using the chatbox on our site and let us know what you would like to learn next! If you enjoyed reading this blog post, feel free to subscribe to our blog for more SEO resources!