I noticed something today that seems kinda strange. The top ten results on MSN and Yahoo are identical for at least 2 of my keyword phrases. condo rental condo rentals Just a coincidence? Wondering if anyone else has noticed this. At least I'm on the first page now for both. Thanks Shawn! Still waiting for Google to catch up but at least I've gone from obscurity to around 28th. Google's results for the above terms are quite different, which is what I'd expect. I really expected all 3 to have quite different results.
big coincidence. I am nowhere on a heavy used keyword in MSN, I am 9th in Yahoo. They have different systems.
Both Yahoo and MSN get their raw data from Inktomi (purchased by Yahoo some time ago). Alta Vista, Hot Bot and All The Web (and a few others) also use the Inktomi raw data. Most likely, MSN and Yahoo have a similar algo applied to the raw results, as do the others. Any day/week/month/year MSN will be switching their results to their new proprietary database and algorithm. In a nutshell, you should have similar results in all of the Inktomi fed databases.