More than 38 million Americans use a search engine on any given day, making search the second most popular online activity to sending or receiving email.
Yet a new Pew Internet & American Life Project has found many searchers ambivalent to the practice (willing to give it up), and naïve as to how search results are derived.
For example, although the survey reveals that 84 percent of Internet users have used search engines, and 87 percent of searchers say they have successful search experiences most of the time, (including some 17 percent of users who say they always find the information for which they are looking), at least half say they could go back to the old way of finding information, with two-thirds saying they could give search engines up tomorrow.
Another seeming contradiction uncovered from the research is that few Internet users can distinguish between paid or sponsored results and unpaid or organic responses yet most say they would stop using search engines if they thought engines were not being clear about how they present their paid results.
It's not that they disapprove of the practice of paid listings, however. About 70 percent of people who have used search engines say they approve of engines providing some results for pay, because the revenue means search is free to users.
Further, many happily click on paid results. Among those in the know who say they've used search engines that include paid results, 54 percent have clicked on paid results.
Comments Dave Pasternack, President, Did-it Search Marketing: "In any commercial search the most important quality I'm looking for in a supplier is their ability to pay for their advertising. I use that as a strong differentiator in search the same as I do when using the yellow pages. Don't we all go for the supplier whose at least running a "space ad?" The last thing I want to do is pick a supplier based on their ability to manipulate Google ranking. That's probably a kid in a garage. I'd rather use a supplier that can afford to advertise to his target audience."
Users in the Pew survey offered these ways they thought search engines could distinguish paid vs. unpaid results:
- 42 percent say paid results should be labeled with words "paid" or "sponsored"
- 20 percent say paid results should be listed with different size or color than other results
- 19 percent say paid and unpaid results should be listed in different sections of a results page
- 12 percent say search engines should provide an explanation about their pay procedures in the results page
- 7 percent either said they don't know or they refused to answer.
Another finding from the report is that a majority of searchers stick with one to three search engines, while 44 percent of searchers regularly use just one. What drives the search habits of these single-engine users? The report suggests that searchers who use a single engine stay there because they're comfortable enough with how they're searching and what they're getting in returns.
Further findings from the report:
- 68 percent of users say that search engines are a fair and unbiased source of information; 19 percent say they don't place that much trust in search engines.
- 55 percent of searchers say about half the information they search for is important to them and half is trivial.
- 88 percent of men who are Internet users have used search engines whereas only 79 percent of women who are Internet users have used search engines.
- 89 percent of Internet users under 30-years-old have used search engines, compared to 85 percent of those 30 to 49 years, 79 percent of those 50 to 64 years and 67 percent of those over 65 years.
This Pew Internet & American Life Project report is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans' use of the Internet and an online survey about Internet health resources. All numerical data was gathered through telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates between May 14 and June 17, 2004, among a sample of 2,200 adults, aged 18 and older.
