Who are the biggest search arbitrage companies?
Well-known names include System1, Team Internet Group (owner of Tonic and ParkingCrew), Sedo, Perion's CodeFuel, Inuvo, Media.net and Ads.com. IAC's Ask Media Group was a large operator until Ask.com closed on 1 May 2026. Several are listed, so their filings are public. Most reported sharp declines in search revenue during 2025 and 2026 as Google and Microsoft changed their syndication programmes, and several are diversifying.
The public numbers tell the story. System1 reported second-quarter 2026 revenue of $30.2 million, down 61% on the year. Team Internet said its Search segment was 13% of net revenue in the first half of 2026 after completing its move away from parked-domain monetisation. Inuvo reported its legacy search revenue down about 80% in the second quarter of 2026. Perion's search revenue fell about 76% in 2025.
Below the listed firms sits a long tail of private operators, many of them media buyer teams working through a feed provider. They are hard to rank because nobody publishes their figures. Size also means less than it did: the firms above grew on AdSense for Domains and Bing syndication, and both have largely gone.