Disadvantages of Meta Search

• May need to decode query forms

• Translation of query syntax and fields not exact

• Some sources don't sort by relevance

• No way to compare relevance scores

• Vulnerable to search spam

• Results returned as HTML without useful tagging, require screenscraping

• Variable quality of search engines

• Must keep up with changes in source engines

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Peer, Meta and Distributed Search
Infonortics Search Engines Meeting, 2002
Avi Rappoport SearchTools.com