Data from Feb. 21, 2000

Based on an analysis of the same five small searches used for the overlap analysis, this chart shows how the searches have been divided by search engine. Fast, AltaVista, Excite, and Northern Light found the most unique pages that none of the other search engines found.

For more detailed analysis, the table below shows the number and percent of unique hits for each search engine. Unique hits were those URLs that were found by only one of the thirteen search engines. The percentage figure refers to the percentage of unique hits as compared to the total hits which that particular search engine found on that search. Times refers to how many times in the five searches a unique hit was found. Only Fast found unique hits on each search.

Given these results from this very small sample, Fast found the most unique hits (40). AltaVista, Excite, and Northern Light ranked next highest for unique hits found.

This example is from a total of 795 hits from five searches found by fourteen search engines. Of the 795 total hits, 298 were unique Web pages. And of those, 110 were unique hits in that they were only found by one of the fourteen search engines.

See also past unique hits reports:

• Sept. 1999 Unique Hits Report
• May 1999 Unique Hits Report
• March 1999 Unique Hits Report
• Jan. 1999 Unique Hits Report

While decisions about which Web search engine to use should not be based on size or unique hits alone, this information is especially important when looking for very specific keywords, phrases, and areas of specialized interest. See also the following statistical analyses:

• Relative Size of the search engines
• Total Size Estimate
• Overlap between the search engines
• Dead Links comparison
• Change Over Time