Okay, we admit it. There are some other search services out there that are similar to Zuula. We weren’t the first to come up with the idea of offering search results from a number of different search engines, all at one website.

One key way that Zuula is different, however, from other “multi-engine” or “metasearch” websites is the way Zuula handles advertising.

When Zuula displays the results of a search, it clearly differentiates between paid advertising and actual search engine results. Paid advertising is either at the top, bottom, or off to the side of the actual search engine results.

In addition, Zuula shades the advertising on the top and bottom of the page, to help distinguish it from the actual search results, and there’s a dividing line between the actual search results and any advertising on the right of the page.

What do other, “similar,” websites do?

Many of them make it very, very hard to tell what is advertising, and what are actual search engine results.

In most cases, advertising and actual search results are formatted very, very similarly, so many users don’t even realize they’re seeing different kinds of content. Many sites go even further, and place the two types of content on the page in ways that make it difficult to differentiate between advertising and paid results.

A not-so-untypical example of these strategies is captured in the screenshot below from another search site. There, careful readers will note the subtle intermixing of similarly formatted advertising (”sponsored by” results) with actual search engine results.

Zuula doesn’t do this.

Sure, it means we don’t generate as many clicks on advertisements as other sites do.

But it also means we make it easier for our users to find what they’re looking for. And, in the process, we make sure advertisers get visitors to their sites who really want to be there.

Those things are more important to us than some extra clicks on advertisements.