Google Tops Satisfaction Index, Yahoo Sees “Lowest Score Yet”

Once again Google has come out on top of the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The survey measures consumer satisfaction across a broad range of business and product categories including “e-business,” which covers ‘internet portals and search engines.”

With the exception of 2007 Google has won the category every year since 2000, although its scores have fluctuated. The survey asks 70,000 customers about their experiences with products and services.

The following are the scores for the major search sites since 2012. However the ACSI has been measuring online business satisfaction since 1995.

Source: ACSI 2014

The ACSI argues “companies that display high levels of customer satisfaction tend to have higher earnings and stock returns relative to competitors.” If the ACSI scores are predictive of future returns, then Yahoo has a good deal to worry about. It’s off 6.6 percent vs. last year and down to its lowest satisfaction score to date.

Here’s the commentary associated with these scores:

The other search engines and portals fall well below Google for user satisfaction. The combined score for smaller niche-like search engines is up 10 percent to 77, but still lags the leader. Google’s larger competitors are even worse off. Bing falls 4 percent to 73 and ties MSN, which dips 1 percent. Meanwhile, Yahoo! drops 7 percent to 71, its lowest score yet. This is the third consecutive decline for Yahoo!, which outsourced much of its search engine to Microsoft’s Bing four years ago. In last place, AOL slips a further 1 percent to 70.

Below are the criteria used to evaluate sites in the portals and search category and the overall benchmarks.