With so much interest in search, it's amazing how relatively little research has been done into how people interact with search engines, especially from a search marketing perspective. That's finally changing.

Over the past few weeks, search engine marketing firm iProspect has released a series of reports studying search behavior. That survey, Search Engine Users Attitudes, involved 1,649 people surveyed at the end of March 2004 on behalf of iProspect by Survey Sample International.

Search marketing firm Enquiro has also been busy. Similar to iPropsect, it has recently released results from a survey of hundreds of people about how they interact with search, as well as a focus group look that will be covered more in tomorrow's SearchDay.

Search Failure

What do people do when they can't find the information they're looking for? 26 percent said they'd give up on a search and try again if they didn't find a match in the first two pages of results, more than any other choice. This was followed by 23 percent who said they'd review only the first few matches on the first page, then 19 percent who said they'd review only the entire first page of results. 15 percent said they'd give up after reviewing three pages. The remainder said they'd look at more than three pages.

These numbers seem surprisingly high. Do they indicate that searchers have become more discriminating, and are less likely to click without first evaluating more than the top handful of results? Perhaps -- but something else may be at work. Perhaps the perceived quality of search results is getting worse, so people are drilling deeper to find what they need.

91 percent said they'd try searching differently at a search engine if the initial search failed to bring up a good match in the first three pages of results. A similar iProspect survey in 2002 found this figure to be 71 percent, causing the company to suggest that search quality is improving. Bill Muller, Vice President, Marketing of iProspect says "Our conclusion was based on the fact that now, only 9% of users will either give up searching altogether or try another search engine, after an "unsuccessful" search -- as opposed to 29% who previously gave up altogether or tried another search engine in the results of our previous survey."

One idea is that search users believe it's more their mistake than the search engine's. In other words, instead of trying the same search elsewhere -- which might actually bring up a better result -- they may feel they've simply not come up with the right query.

The survey also looked at abandonment by profession. Homemakers were the finickiest, with more than 52 percent looking only at the first page of search results before moving to another search engine or modifying their search. Abandonment rates were also high among educators (40%), IT/MIS professionals (38%) and students (27%).

More oddly, those on unemployment stopped looking at results after the first page more than full-time or part-time employees.

The adage that age mellows people and makes them more patient doesn't apply in the search world, according to survey results. Across the board, the older a user is the less likely he or she will look at more than the first page of results. Nearly half of all people 60 and older abandoned their search after the first page of results if they didn't find what they were looking for. This was followed by 44 percent of 45-59 year olds, 38 percent of 30-44 year olds, and just 32 percent of 18-29 year olds.

And women are less likely to go more deeply into search results than men. 44 percent of women said they don't go past the first page of search results, whereas 37 percent of men responded this way. Why?

Women "tend to go directly to brands that they know and trust for advice to save time," said Lauren Wiener, managing director at Meredith Interactive, publisher of American Baby and Ladies' Home Journal's LHJ.com in an article in MediaPost.Education level: College graduates preferred natural results (65%) to paid listings (35%), while non-college graduates had less pronounced preference for organic listings (56%) to paid listings (44%).

Source: searchenginewatch 2004