Search Engine Display Chart


This chart summarizes key features on how search engines display results. It is as of Jan. 4, 1999. Information for AOL Search pertains to its main human-powered results, not to its Inktomi-powered "Web Articles" information.

Search Engine Title Size If 
No Title		 Summary Size Uses Meta Tag? Results At A Time Display Options
AOL Search About 70 n/a 249 No 10 None
AltaVista 78 Says "No title" 150 Yes 10 Standard,
Compact,
Text-Only
Excite 70 Says "Untitled" 395 Yes 10, 20,
30, 40, 50		 Summaries,
Titles only,
Sort by site
Google 75 Lists URL 170 No 10, 30, 100 None
HotBot 80 Lists URL 170 - 250 Yes 10, 25,
50, 100		 Full
Brief
URLs only
Infoseek 70 Uses first line on page 170 - 240 Yes 10, 20,
25, 50		 Summaries,
Titles Only
Lycos 80 Uses first line on page 275 No 10, 20,
30, 40		 None
MSN Search 70 - 120 Lists URL About 250 Yes 10, 20, 50 Full
Title only
Northern Light 80 ? 150 - 200 No 10 None
Web
Crawler		 60 Lists URL 395 Yes 10, 25, 100 Titles only,
Summaries

Title Size

This shows how many characters the search engines display from a title tag. This is not the same as the maximum length a title tag can be. It simply shows how many characters from the tag will actually be displayed.

If No Title

This shows what the search engines do if no title tag is provided.

Summary Size

Search engines typically form their descriptions from the first text they find on a web page, or from the meta description tag, if they support it. This shows the description length, in all cases. Note that this is not the same as the maximum length a meta description tag can be. It simply shows how many characters from the tag, if used, will actually be displayed.

Uses Meta Tag?

Some search engines will use text in a meta description tag for a page's summary. This shows which provide this support. The How Meta Tags Work page describes the meta description tag in more depth.

Results At A Time

Shows many results you can display at one time.  The default setting is shown in bold. Usually, you need to use a special power search page or preference option to change the default.

Display Options

Shows whether you can choose to see results in other ways, such as titles only. Some search engines also support Sort By Date, and some also list page dates within descriptions.

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