Business Users Search Engine Survey

Results from WebAdvantage.net’’s “Business Users Search Engine Survey”

Summary: Most business users continue to search in engines until they find relevant results, not stopping on the first page or settling for an advertisement.Survey respondents consisted of a sample of primarily U.S. small business owners, marketing and advertising specialists, and those in business management positions.There were 475 total respondents to the entire survey.

Question 1:
Do you know when a search engine listing is paid or unpaid?

Yes: 229 (51%)
No: 221 (49%)

Detail & Analysis

Nearly half of those surveyed among the business community state that they do not recognize the difference between paid search listings and unpaid.

This may be for numerous reasons:

1) Many people in the business world are aware of sponsored listings on search engines
2) Search engines have distinguished sponsored links from the rest of their results

What is interesting is that 49% of the business community that uses search engines for searching are not sure when a search engine listing is paid for, or organic.

While some search engines, Google for example, make an effort to differentiate its ads from its organic search results. Other search engines like MSN search do not do so good of a job, cloaking paid results with organic.

Another example of such sponsored search confusion would be Yahoo, where sponsored and organic search results (results gathered from different sources), although labeled, are shown together. This is quite similar to the June 2003 Consumer Web Watch study, False Oracles: Consumer Reaction to Learning the Truth About How Search Engines Work, which found:

The majority of participants never clicked beyond the first page of search results as they had blind trust in search engines to present only the best or most accurate unbiased results on the first page. As a result, two-in-five links (or 41%) selected by our participants during the assigned search sessions were paid results.

According to our survey, 23% of the survey respondents use Yahoo and/or MSN as their search engine of choice.

Question 2:
What % of the time, out of all your searches, do you click on a sponsored link/paid ad?

0-20%: 303 (64%)
21-40%: 101 (21%)
41-60%: 57 (12%)
61-80%: 10 (2%)
81-100%: 5 (1%)

Detail & Analysis

85% of the audience thinks they click on sponsored links less than 40% of all their searches. The perception by the majority of business community is that they do not click on sponsored links in most cases, instead relying on or preferring to use organic results to find what they’re looking for.

Question 3:
What % of the time out of all your searches do you ultimately find what you’re looking for through a sponsored link/paid ad?

0-20%: 266 (56%)
21-40%: 103 (22%)
41-60%: 58 (12%)
61-80%: 28 (6%)
81-100%: 20 (4%)

Detail & Analysis

Even when clicked on, paid links do not yield the best results. 78% of all respondents feel that they find the information that they are looking for less than 40% of the time through sponsored links.

Question 4:
Please indicate the % of time you use the below search engines for your searching

Google: 66.37%
Yahoo: 15.25%
MSN: 7.8%
AOL/Netscape: 4.16%
Lycos: 0.55%
AltaVista: 1.55%
FastSearch: 0.35%
Excite: 0.70%
Hotbot: 0.30%
iWon: 1.21%

Detail & Analysis

To an even greater extent than the online public at large which uses Google about 23% of the time , the business community overwhelmingly uses Google to conduct its searches. Yahoo (at 15.25%) and MSN (at 7.8%) combined only represents 23% of use.

Question 5:
If you don’t find what you’re looking for on the first page of search results, do you typically quit at that point or continue on?

Quit after 1st Page: 37 (8%)
Continue on to 2nd Page: 125 (28%)
Continue on to 3rd Page: 125 (28%)
Continue on past the 4th page until I find what I’m looking for: 164 (36%)

Detail & Analysis

A remarkable 92% of business community searchers continue on past the first pages of search results and search ads and even more drill down even beyond the fourth page of search results. This seems to show that many searchers believe the relevant results they’re looking for are listed but they just have to drill down further to get to it.

It also shows, however, that there is significant room for improvement in either how search engines deliver results to users or in how users go about the act of searching. It also may mean that companies can expand their interpretation of ideal search engine rankings to encompass more than just Page One listings, particularly if they cater to a business audience.

These results are entirely different from the Consumer Web Watch study of a consumer audience in which the majority of users would rely only on first page of search listings:

The majority of participants never clicked beyond the first page of search results as they had blind trust in search engines to present only the best or most accurate unbiased results on the first page. As a result, two-in-five links (or 41%) selected by our participants during the assigned search sessions were paid results.

Conclusions:

• 49% of the business community does not recognize a paid search engine listing.
• 85% of the audience thinks they click on sponsored links less than 40% of all their searches.
• In most cases members of the business community rely on organic search results, not using paid search listings.
• Paid listings do not always yield the most relevant results - 78% of all respondents feel that they find the information that they are looking for less than 40% of the time through sponsored links.
• 66.37% of the business community uses Google for their search engine of choice.
• 92% of business community searchers continue on past the first pages of search results and search ads

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