Sophisticated Online Searchers? Nope. Fewer.
June 18, 2012
TechCrunch published “Hitwise: Google US Search Share Down 5% In The Last Year; Bing, Yahoo Gained.” Check it out. We are less interested in the Google market share than the average goose. However, within the article was a table with some hefty data freight.
Here at the goose pond we hear from many folks, “I am a really good online researchers.” We find this amusing because about two thirds of the ArnoldIT team have degrees in library and information science. We have a handful of people with excellent research skills honed after years of wandering through the stacks of the Harrod’s Creek library with its collection of 37 volumes.
Here’s the table with a happy quack to TechCrunch and the ever reliable Experian Hitwise:
A happy quack to the ever reliable Experian Hitwise.
The key datum is the percentage of alleged Web search users who bag in a single term and take what the objective, relevance centric Web search vendors shovel out: 29.93 percent use single term queries. Call it 30 percent. How many of these expert searchers can identify disinformation? How many know how to determine the provenance of the source? How many spend time to double check the “facts” like the ones in this ever reliable Experian Hitwise table?
Another interesting point is that about 15 percent of the May 2012 users employ five or more terms. I am somewhat encouraged but that percentage is decreasing from the May 2011 figures. Bummer.
My view:
- As education erodes, the ability to figure out or even know how to sort out the goose feathers from the giblets will not be a growing asset.
- Based on my limited and skewed sample, MBAs and their ilk have little appetite to dig for information and check facts. The talk about data outweighs the actual value of meaningful factoids. I wish I could get paid by the fluff, an official unit of baloney.
- Has anyone thought about the political power of a Web search system which filters, shapes, and outputs information to one third of its customers? I do which is one reason why I am delighted to be an old, addled goose.
Yep, great data. I wonder if they are accurate. Hope not.
Stephen E Arnold, June 18, 2012
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2 Responses to “Sophisticated Online Searchers? Nope. Fewer.”
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[…] Sophisticated Online Searchers? Nope. Fewer. […]
It would be interesting if this research could be extended or split between social and organisational search patterns.
On a side not…as an MBA graduate….please don’t confuse the student from the master. The academic system hungry for quick book revenues and high executive student fees should reviewed rather than the students.