Think most search engines deliver similar results? Think again. Today’s SearchEngineWatch reports on a new study that compared Ask Jeeves, Google, MSN Search and Yahoo, and found that the average overlap in their first-page results was just 1.1 percent. The survey found that 84.9 percent of all results were unique to a single search engine. Says SearchEngineWatch associate editor Chris Sherman:

“The implications of these findings are significant for both searchers and marketers. Searchers relying on a single search engine are missing a vast swath of web content that they could easily find simply by trying their queries on other engines. And marketers targeting a single search engine in their optimization efforts are effectively abandoning a potentially huge amount of traffic from other sources.”

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.