Data from March 5, 1999

Based on an analysis of the same four very small searches used for the overlap analysis, this table shows the number of total hits and the number and percent of dead links from those total hits for each search and engine. Dead links were those URLs that resulted in a 404 error message (file not found) from the server.

This example is from a total of 202 hits from four searches found by ten search engines Of the 202 total hits, 97 were unique Web pages. Of those, 20 were dead links.

While this sample is too small to make an accurate generalization, Google!, Excite, and HotBot had the lowest percentage of dead links. At the same time the HotBot's Inktomi database scores so well, Snap, another Inktomi-based search engines, fared worse. Northern Light had the highest number of dead links with Lycos and AltaVista showing an even higher percentage.

See also the Jan. 1999 Dead Link Report.

See also statistics on search engine size, the lack of overlap between the search engines, unique hits, and the change over time.