The players

The company behind Ask.com, for years a large search-to-search arbitrage operator, closed by IAC on 1 May 2026.

The source of most search-ad money, and the rule-maker whose policy changes can remake search arbitrage overnight.

Dot-com era metasearch company (Dogpile, WebCrawler) whose search business System1 bought for $45 million in 2016.

Early web directory and pay-per-click network that lost most of its revenue overnight when Microsoft left in 2003.

Microsoft's search-ad business: the second big source of feed ads, and the engine behind Yahoo's search results.

The company that invented pay-per-click search ads and the syndicated search feed; bought by Yahoo in 2003.

The best-known listed search arbitrage company: buys traffic itself and runs a partner network on Google ads.

Dutch group that runs dozens of small search-engine brands and says it is one of the largest Google search partners.

The third feed: an old search brand whose syndicated ads have become the fallback as Google tightens its rules.