It's essential to know which search engines and directories
work together. If you want to plan an effective search engine
optimization strategy, you must know which search engines
cooperate and who gets the search results from whom.
Early this year, we have released a similar
table for the US market. Since many US companies are interested
in the European search engine market, we've compiled a new
table that tells you which search engines in the UK get their
search results from whom.
| AllTheWeb |
AllTheWeb has no UK domain |
| AltaVista UK |
AltaVista UK displays Yahoo results and paid results from Overture. |
| AOL Search UK |
AOL UK gets the search results from Google and from the Open Directory Project. It's worth noting that it doesn't use the Google AdWords listings for the paid results. The paid results come from Overture instead. |
| Ask Jeeves UK |
Ask.co.uk displays the search results from Teoma and the Open Directory Project. Three paid results are Google AdWords listings, additional paid results come from the pay per click search engine Mirago.co.uk. |
| BBCi |
BBC is a famous TV network. Its Internet site BBCi displays special Yahoo/Inktomi results that concentrates on UK sites and that is filtered for offensive contents. In addition, the BBCi search results can include recommended web sites by their own editors. |
| BT Openworld |
BT Openworld is one of the UK's leading Internet service providers. Although it has partnered with Yahoo to provide broadband access to its users, it displays the search results from Google, including Google AdWords listings. They also offer to search for Overture results. |
| Dmoz |
The Open Directory Project: They do not have a UK domain but there's a special UK page on the main domain. |
| Excite UK |
They display paid results from Overture. Additional results come from AllTheWeb. |
| Freeserve |
Freeserve, one the biggest Internet service providers in the UK, is part of the Wanadoo Group since March 2001. Freeserve will soon be rebranded as Wanadoo. It currently displays AllTheWeb results, so the paid results come from Overture. |
| Google UK |
Google UK uses the same database as its US counterpart, but you have the option to search only pages from the UK. |
| HotBot UK |
The standard search results come from Yahoo/Inktomi, the paid results come from Overture. |
| LookSmart UK |
see "UK Directory" below |
| Lycos UK |
They display search results from Yahoo/Inktomi and paid results from Overture. They offer a special "Directory" tab which displays the search results from the Open Directory Project, along with paid results from Espotting. |
| MSN Search UK |
MSN has now ended the relationship with the LookSmart directory in the UK. They currently display Yahoo/Inktomi results with paid results from Overture. In addition, they display "featured sites" for some search requests, which are the sites of the advertisers on the MSN network or sites from the MSN network. |
| Netscape UK |
Netscape UK lets you choose to search its own search results (which come from AOL UK, see above), Espotting results or Overture results. |
| ntlworld |
This popular UK Internet service provider displays search results from Google, including Google AdWords listings. |
| Teoma |
Teoma has no UK domain. |
| UK Directory / UK Net Guide |
Crystal Guides Ltd is the company behind these two directories. They have just bought the LookSmart UK database. The old LookSmart.co.uk domain now redirects to the UK Directory site, which claims to be "the largest directory of independently reviewed websites in the UK". Both directories have no common search results, they display paid results from Overture only. |
| UK Plus |
This search engine displays paid results from Espotting. It also provides shortcut links to the search engines Ask Jeeves UK and AltaVista UK. |
| Yahoo! UK & Ireland |
Yahoo uses its own Inktomi results and results from its human-compiled database. In addition, it displays paid results from Overture (which belongs to Yahoo). |
As of 27 April 2004. Note that partnerships and alliances regularly change
in the search engine world.
