Meta search engines
Meta search engines do not have their own database, but are still considered search engines. In order to answer the search queries of their users, these queries are forwarded to other search engines and lists of results are then created. These meta searchers do not have their own search engine index. To do this, they access the results of small specialized search engines as well as those of the major search engines.
What are the functions of a metasearch engine?
Because a metasearch engine does not have its own database and derives its search results from other search engines, the search process usually takes longer than with a regular search engine.
The actual function of a meta search engine is ultimately that it uses its own sorting, evaluation and ranking criteria when creating the results lists. These criteria look different depending on the meta searcher. They obtain their own ranking by determining the search results of major search engines. In some cases, users are given the opportunity to select the search engines for the creation of the results list in advance.
Why is a metasearch engine needed?
The advantage for the user is that they do not have to enter their search query in every major search engine. With the meta search engine, a single question is enough and the user is given all the results of the most relevant websites from various search engines. Evaluating and sorting the results takes a little more time, but the search within individual categories is more precise.
What are the advantages of the metasearch engine?
The basic idea of a metasearch engine is to provide the user with the most relevant results in relation to their search query. And this with the aid of a neutral evaluation criterion. In theory, the data pool is often larger than in practice. This allows very comprehensive results to be determined for a specific keyword or topic.
In terms of information neutrality, data protection and a general improvement in online security, a metasearch engine offers the user considerable advantages. Meta searchers are known for the fact that no data about their users and search behavior is collected and evaluated. Whether a metasearch engine is profit-oriented depends on the provider. In most cases, however, this is not the case.
What are the disadvantages of a metasearch engine?
The metasearch engines will always depend on the original sources and are dependent on their industry.
In order to be able to affirm the argument of a more comprehensive database, there would ideally have to be a search engine landscape that allows many different search engine services to coexist on an equal footing. But the fact is that Google holds around 90% of the market share in Germany. This means that most metasearch engines will probably obtain their search results from Google.
Examples of metasearch engines
The main difference between the metasearch engines lies in the search engine from which the information is obtained. Another difference is the general orientation of the service. This means that there are specialized metasearch engines for a wide variety of products. These can be rental cars, hotels, travel, news or scientific documents.
The best-known search engines include:
- Unbubble.eu → Metasearch engine from Germany with more than 20 data sources
- Metacrawler.com → The world’s first metasearch engine
- Meta-spinner.de → Also a German metasearch engine, which is suitable for product searches
- MetaGer.de → The best-known and above all largest German metasearch engine
Meta search engines in Germany
As already explained, the metasearch engines obtain their search results from other, larger search engines. There are various categories in which a metasearch engine can specialize. Metasearch engines are particularly useful for planning and booking trips. Among the best known are Swoodoo, Trivago and Kayak. The search engine Swoodoo searches in the category “Flights” and thus looks for the cheapest offer. The metasearch engine Trivago, which specializes in “hotels”, and Kayak, which generally deals with “travel”, also operate according to this principle.
But there are not only metasearch engines that are categorized and have something to do with travel in some way. Metasearch engines that specialize in the job market are particularly successful. Above all, this is an area that appeals to a particularly broad target group. One of the best-known metasearch engines in the “Job” category is Indeed. Originally from the USA, Indeed is also very well-known and popular in Germany. According to the website itself, almost 150,000 new job offers are posted on the site every week. This meta search engine obtains its information primarily from job exchanges, newspapers, career sites and associations. JobRobot, Gigajob and Cesar are also very successful metasearch engines from the job market.