SEARCH APPARATUS

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To construct a search system capable of outputting a search result on a medium suited to a query by effectively using an existing search system.SOLUTION: A query input unit 20 inputs a query into various types of search engines E. A similarity calculation unit 36 calculates multimedia similarity between contents of the search result from a Web search engine E1, or a reference engine, and contents of the search result from other search engines E. A search result replacement unit 38 generates a search result for an output by replacing the search result of the reference engine with the search result from the other search engine E based on the multimedia similarity.