Google Wins Users' Hearts, but Not Their Ad Clicks
Vividence released their findings from a search engine usage study that revealed some interesting information about search:
Confirming popular beliefs, Google is the run-away leader in terms of customer loyalty and satisfaction, with a vast majority of study participants indicating that Google is their primary search engine and 89% indicating they had a strongly positive experience with the site. Yahoo! was the clear number-two search site with 68% of users indicating a strongly positive experience. Google and Yahoo! held a significant lead over the other leading search engines: Ask Jeeves (50%), Lycos (48%) and MSN (41%).
In addition, Google topped the Vividence Customer Experience Rankings Index, which weighed more than 250 metrics and assessed key areas of each search engine, including brand impact, future usage, customer satisfaction and sponsored link/ad activity.
Google users reported a higher perceived rate of success when using Google. However, Vividence uncovered that actual search results returned by the leading five search engines do not differ substantially. In fact, when search success was objectively measured, Google did not help users achieve search success any more than the other major search engines. Rather, the perceived quality of the search results, including result presentation, was the primary driver of customer satisfaction and future usage of a search engine.
I'm not sure how they determined that the search results are not significantly different at each search engine, but I have to agree. When Google was born, it was a lot better than the other search engines, but now Yahoo has copied everything that made Google successful, and almost all the other search sites are using Yahoo's technology (except AskJeeves), so the search results are all usually pretty comparable. People still have a strong perception, though, that Google's results are better than anyone else's. That's the brand that they've built up. They have also shown that they are willing to sacrifice the easy buck by clearly separating the paid and natural search results. As evidenced by this Vividence study, Google's ads aren't clicked on as much as other search sites. Google seems to be betting on the fact that users will keep coming back and they'll make up for the lower ad click rates with their volume of users (and syndicated ads to other search engines). So far they seem to be winning that bet.
Read the press release from Vividence
With all the current attention on search, it's not surprising that companies are starting to realize how little research has actually been done on the subject. Another study was recently done by iProspect.
A few findings I found interesting:
You can download the white paper in PDF format. 28 pages of info to read through, but well worth the time if you're interested in search engine usage.
Confirming popular beliefs, Google is the run-away leader in terms of customer loyalty and satisfaction, with a vast majority of study participants indicating that Google is their primary search engine and 89% indicating they had a strongly positive experience with the site. Yahoo! was the clear number-two search site with 68% of users indicating a strongly positive experience. Google and Yahoo! held a significant lead over the other leading search engines: Ask Jeeves (50%), Lycos (48%) and MSN (41%).
In addition, Google topped the Vividence Customer Experience Rankings Index, which weighed more than 250 metrics and assessed key areas of each search engine, including brand impact, future usage, customer satisfaction and sponsored link/ad activity.
Google users reported a higher perceived rate of success when using Google. However, Vividence uncovered that actual search results returned by the leading five search engines do not differ substantially. In fact, when search success was objectively measured, Google did not help users achieve search success any more than the other major search engines. Rather, the perceived quality of the search results, including result presentation, was the primary driver of customer satisfaction and future usage of a search engine.
I'm not sure how they determined that the search results are not significantly different at each search engine, but I have to agree. When Google was born, it was a lot better than the other search engines, but now Yahoo has copied everything that made Google successful, and almost all the other search sites are using Yahoo's technology (except AskJeeves), so the search results are all usually pretty comparable. People still have a strong perception, though, that Google's results are better than anyone else's. That's the brand that they've built up. They have also shown that they are willing to sacrifice the easy buck by clearly separating the paid and natural search results. As evidenced by this Vividence study, Google's ads aren't clicked on as much as other search sites. Google seems to be betting on the fact that users will keep coming back and they'll make up for the lower ad click rates with their volume of users (and syndicated ads to other search engines). So far they seem to be winning that bet.
Read the press release from Vividence
With all the current attention on search, it's not surprising that companies are starting to realize how little research has actually been done on the subject. Another study was recently done by iProspect.
A few findings I found interesting:
- 56.7% of respondents said they usually use the same search engine.
- 81.7% of respondents begin a new search if they don't find what they're looking for in the first 3 pages of search results.
- 64.8% of respondents who were college graduates found natural search results more relvant, while just 56.2% of those who were not college graduates found the natural results more relevant.
- 64.5% of respondents who are employed found natural search results more relevant, with just 55.1% of unemployed respondents finding the natural search results more relevant.
You can download the white paper in PDF format. 28 pages of info to read through, but well worth the time if you're interested in search engine usage.
posted by Dave @ 9:53 AM
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