Penn State recently published the results from a study which classifies web searchers. They say that people mainly use web search engines for three main purposes, thus searchers are divided into three different categories. The three main categories are:
- Information searchers – those who use a search engine to look for information regarding a specific fact or topic
- Navigational searchers – those who use a search engine to find a specific site
- Transactional searchers – those who use a search engine to find information on buying a specific product or service
What they found out of all of the research is that most people are information searchers, they’re trying to find information regarding a specific fact or topic. They say, “Researchers analyzed more than 1.5 million queries from hundreds of thousands of search engine users. Findings showed that about 80 percent of queries are informational and about 10 percent each are for navigational and transactional purposes.”
What I like about this study is that a rather large amount of search queries were analyzed which gives me a better feeling that this study is accurate. They said that other studies in the past have looked at “much smaller sets of queries, usually manually,” while this research was all about classifying queries automatically.
Also interesting is that in the future they plan to take this study to the next level. The Penn State Researcher will do this by using a more “complex algorithm that will hopefully yield a 90-percent accuracy rate using similar searching criteria.”
So what do you use search engines for? Let us know in the Poll below (you must have Flash enabled):
I use search engines for informational purposes ONLY.
So, in which group are those of us who use Google as a spell-checker (the “Did you mean … ” feature)?
Which category does a [youtorrent.com] fall under?
The poll doesn’t work for me… I use Google for dozens of purposes, including checking word definitions, spell-checking like Leonid mentioned, weather, movie listings, area code lookups… and then for searching or navigating as well.
Going to say informational. That’s just a guess though.
Useless for me. Like the how-to geek, I also use google for a ton of different things. I use it for navigating, information, transactions, site specific searching…the list goes on.
There should be an “all of the above” option on the poll. I use Google for all three purposes. Information is a given, I think everyone uses Google/web search for that. Because I use Firefox with Google in the search box, it’s faster sometimes to just google a specific site I want to visit rather than trying to find it in my bookmarks, so that’s Navigation. I don’t use it for transactions as often but I do if what I’m looking for is obscure and I can’t think of who might sell it.
I’d say I’m 70% information searcher, 5% navigational searcher and 25% transactional searcher. Am I supposed to vote for information searcher now? I’d like to vote “all of the above” as well
use it as an information hub.
Hey! Where’s the “I live in my search engine” option?
I can’t believe I never thought to use Google as a spell-checker before!
I guess an “all of the above” would have been a good option as well. Come to think of it, I’d fit in the “all of the above” category as well.
Most of what you mentioned would fit under “informational searching,” wouldn’t you think? At least for me, weather, area code lookups and movie listings would all be informational types of searches.