In Search of Disclosure

Meta-search Sites Compile Results But Don't Always Tell You Who's Paying for Placement

Angela Gunn Consumer Reports WebWatch Web Ethics Columnist>

Beyond search engines Yahoo and Google (yes, there is life beyond Google) exist the meta-search sites. These all-in-one search sites save you valuable keystrokes by searching multiple search engines at once and compiling the results for your convenience.

Sites such as Dogpile, Mamma, and Metacrawler, which harvest results from a number of the Web's best-known large search engines, can be quite interesting. It's intriguing to see how one query can return such different results from various engines. Such variations in results also help illustrate that no one search engine has a monopoly on "knowing" the Web.

Problem is, regular users of such sites forget -- or don't realize -- that the results they're getting may be skewed. Many search sites these days accept payment from advertisers to list certain Web pages higher in the search results, sometimes marking them as "sponsored" or "partner" links. That means meta-search sites, which tend to give just the first few links retrieved from each engine, are more likely to show sponsored links. Problem is, meta-sites usually strip away any search engine notation that shows that Link X is a paid listing. Users, therefore, generally won't know that on the original search engine, Link X was shown in a colored box or otherwise offset as, in effect, advertising material -- unless they dig deeper to look for sponsorship disclosure information.

Some people are, of course, perfectly happy to regard any search results uncritically; if it's the right link, who cares how it got on the top of the list? But serious searches deserve more from you. Meta-searches can be both fun and informative, but searching for information in which accuracy and specificity is paramount -- health-related information, for instance -- ought to be undertaken on sites that make it absolutely clear which links are pay-for-play and which are "pure" high-ranking search results.

Some search engines are doing their part by flagging the paid results on their own sites. (Search engines that do not flag their paid placements are already in the ethics doghouse, but that's another matter entirely.) One doubts meta-searches will adequately alert users to such sponsorship arrangements on individual search engines. The meta-search harvesting process generally doesn't work like that, nor could it be engineered to work like that without an amount of trouble and money likely to make the entire meta-search thing infeasible.

Guess it's up to you, the consumer, to manage this situation to be sure you're finding the most credible information you can in the search process. This is one of those circumstances in which only you can look after your interests, no matter how much the other players -- the search engines, the meta-searches -- would like to help you out. Simply not using the meta-search sites is one option, but, as I've said, you can get some interesting insights on the Web from the juxtaposition of all those search results (whether or not they've paid to appear so prominently).

The task then becomes finding a way to use the meta-searches in a way that brings you the best possible results with the highest level of sponsorship disclosure.

Dogpile, for example, segments its results by the search engine on which they were found. In other words, you will receive the top five to 10 results that appear on each search engine for a particular query. This process makes it simple to compare the results each engine offers and to choose a search engine to query directly for further results -- and sponsorship information.

You also should be aware of links on meta-search sites titled "About Results," "About Search," or something similar. These links will usually share information on which search engines used in the query utilize paid listings -- information that can help you determine which links among the search results are fueled by advertising.

Convenient? Not as much as simply taking meta-search results at face value. Important? Most definitely, particularly if you are in search of reliable research or information.

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Gunn is the co-founder of, and former Internet ethics columnist for, Yahoo! Internet Life and is currently the technology editor for Time Out New York weekly magazine. She has written hundreds of articles for PC Magazine, MSNBC.com, The Industry Standard, Business 2.0, CNN.com, Seattle Weekly, LA Weekly, and other publications.