Helpinghand - 10:21 am on Jun 23, 2007 (gmt 0)

Seems like folks are using more local search directories than Monster search tools. This would suggest many like accuracy and speed, over mass results and to 'buy now'.

This boils down to a time thing. People don't want to spend large amounts of time, probably looking for basic stuff eg: Need a shop that stocks xyz, and will travel to purchase within the next few hours.

"Or I will be in the area that day, but need some quotes first - but chances are will purchase". Which suggests that the searchers already know what they want, and other criteria make the difference of a sale in shop A or shop D.

I use Search engines as a starting point, but once I find a better method of search, I make a note of it, and thus the search engine loses those searches in favour of the new search option/tool/engine forever.

So I choose resources that serve me better than Google or Ask can. Speed and accuracy is the key, and directories do this well, although not perfectly. Directories need to increase in size and offer more services to be considered a big threat to the search engines. But because of the 'instant' accuracy of them, means I find it tough to resist using them.

I used Yell.com the other day, and could have used Google - but knew Yell would be faster. That forced me to use Yell, even though I don't really like Yell.com, it was a better alternative for that particular search enquiry.

Yell wasn't superior, just better, er, faster I guess.

[edited by: Helpinghand at 10:24 am (utc) on June 23, 2007]