The Myth Of Great Search Engine Results

Oct 23, 2009 at 6:54pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Too much time is often spent about the new features the various major search engines roll out or the latest deals they cut. Here at Search Engine Land, we can be as guilty of that as anyone. To correct it, I'll be spending more and more time highlighting poor quality search results that I encounter, in hopes of nudging the industry to improve things. Canaries In The Search Mine I've spoken and written for years that when it comes to search engines, I think there are two "canaries in the coal mine" that catch a whiff of something bad emanating from the search engines. The first a [...]

Filed in: Features: Analysis, Stats: Relevancy, Top News

UK Report: 1 in 3 Kids Think Top Search Rankings Most “Truthful”

Oct 8, 2009 at 9:39am ET by Greg Sterling

A new and wide ranging report from the UK regulatory agency Ofcom about media literacy finds that 32 percent of UK kids aged 12-15 years old believe that the links/listings shown at the top of search results are the most "truthful." Here's how the report summarized this finding: Among children aged 12-15 who use the internet, almost all have experience of using search engine websites (94%). Those who use search engine sites were shown a list of options and were asked to say which, if any, apply in terms of the way results are shown on search engine sites. There is no clear consensus [...]

Filed in: Stats: General, Stats: Relevancy

uTest’s “Battle of the Search Engines” Tests Bugs

Sep 15, 2009 at 9:31am ET by Barry Schwartz

uTest released a study they named "Battle of the Search Engines" which measured the relevancy of Google, Yahoo, and Bing based on "search results accuracy, page load speed, real-time relevance and usability." The report found that there were over 600 "bugs" found in the test. By "bug" I believe they mean links that lead to dead ends, i.e. broken links. I am not exactly sure how that measures "relevancy" of the search result, but it does tell us some things. In any event, here are the key points from the survey: 71% of respondents stated search results accuracy as the most important [...]

Filed in: Stats: Relevancy

Best Search Engine In Canada? Hitwise Says It’s Bing

Aug 19, 2009 at 11:26pm ET by Matt McGee

In a detailed report about the Canadian search landscape, Hitwise says Bing is the best search engine at producing "successful searches," beating out both Google and Yahoo, as well as their Canada-specific search engines. The chart above, provided specifically to Search Engine Land, shows that Bing is the 6th most popular search engine in Canada, but has the best success rate at 78.61%. That's about 2% better than Yahoo Canada (ca.search.yahoo.com), and more than 6% better than Google Canada (www.google.ca). It's important to understand how Hitwise defines a "successful search": "A [...]

Filed in: Google: Web Search, Microsoft: Bing, Stats: Hitwise, Stats: Relevancy, Top News

Google Tops In Search Satisfaction According To Pre-Bing Survey

Aug 18, 2009 at 8:50am ET by Greg Sterling

On an annual basis the University of Michigan puts out the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Business report, sponsored and administered by Foresee Results. Among the things the index examines is consumer satisfaction with search engines. The survey asks a representative sample of consumers to rate their experiences with portals and search engines according to several criteria, which produces an overall score on a 100 point scale. Google is again on top in search with a score of 86, identical to last year. The survey is supposed to be predictive of future consumer behavior, as t [...]

Filed in: Google: Business Issues, Google: General, Microsoft: Bing, Microsoft: Business Issues, Stats: Popularity, Stats: Relevancy, Stats: comScore, Top News, Yahoo: Search

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