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More than half of users checked out only one result and more than 80% stopped after looking at three results."
[news.bbc.co.uk...]
"It will make sobering reading for businesses using search engines to market themselves.
The findings illustrate the importance of having a good ranking on a web search engine."
Good job we've got WW then.
Luke
(ex-novatech!)
More than half of users checked out only one result and more than 80% stopped after looking at three results."How do they get their %'s.?
More than half .... bla bla bla. Surely that leaves a remainder of less than 50% ... not 80%?
Stop rushing to make yet another post count and take time out to read the material.
I would take that to mean that more than 50% stopped at the one result, and more than 80% stopped at no more than 3 results. No blah, blah about it.
2odd...
I checked here but could not find it:
[ist.psu.edu...]
Related subject: What makes a good search engine? [stlcu.com] from Computeruser.com
The article mentions the "rate of abandonment" of Teoma and states that it went from 40 percent in December of 2002 to 19 percent in January 2003.
That is only 19% of the people clicking on one of the Search engine results actually came back to the search engine to check others.
I'm sure Google checks this stuff as well as a certain percentage of SERPS carry click throughs and they have the toolbar data.
from this thread: [webmasterworld.com...]
[edited by: vitaplease at 10:20 am (utc) on June 27, 2003]
Kettle, Pot, Black comes to mind! At least you got another post count :) - I grew out of that some days ago ... but you're getting there :)
Okay, more than 50% stopped at the one result - they hit a link and never came back for the same search because they got the results they wanted.... and more than 80% stopped at no more than 3 results... this means that 80% either got the results they wanted on the first, second or third link.
Is that what it is meant to say?
Am I understanding the stats better?
Either people are not bothering to look around for more sites and just clicking on whatever comes up in the first few, OR the search engine is matching the search well and the users are happy with the first few results.
I would suggest it is a mix of the two. AllTheWeb gives good results and will match most queries.
Lets say on the first instance, the searcher scanned the results based upon their description before clicking the link. That action reduces the number of unwanted sites.
Whereas, if the user hit number one first, because it is at the top, it may be more likely that it wasn't suitable for the searcher.
"Niche search engines that focus on a narrow topic or search engines that cluster results by finding similarities and grouping them may be consumers' best bet for improving relevancy,"
That is a suggestion. But how do regular searchers go to such sites. Through search engines?
Either people are not bothering to look around for more sites and just clicking on whatever comes up in the first few, OR the search engine is matching the search well and the users are happy with the first few results.I would suggest it is a mix of the two.
Makes sense.
Where I work in schools for most of my time I have a unique perspective of watching everyday people search the web. The above is certainly true, however, I sway more to the "they found what they wanted" theory.
Chris.
It is certainly a mix of the two suggested by Bobby_Davro but I would be interested in the actual positions of those selected.
It means the searcher 'shopped' around before hitting a link as opposed to hitting the first link.
Okay, there is a margin of massive traffic with a small percentage of spenders being equal or better ... either way, we need spenders.
Traffic doesn't feed the family.
Sorry about some of the confusion in the press release. It was a lot of data and results to get across without the tables.
Once I get back from vacation, I will publish the article on my Web site, and post the URL.
Jim
[ist.psu.edu...]
Jim
