Something like a cooperative where companies become the franchisee owner for a specific search vertical. They could get access to technology, software and knowledge, but the costs of infrastructure would be the responsibility of the member. As well as having their own “front page”, website and branding there would then be a “meta” search engine that intelligently searches the franchisees search engines based on the query.

If someone searches for something on one engine and it doesn’t have the results the “meta” search engine could be checked and direct the user to another engine that would better fit their query.