Skip to main content
Search Showdown: The Brand's the Thing
In a series of user tests run by Vividence, the answers that search engine users obtained for a variety of research questions were not significantly different. Google, MSN, Lycos, Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo! all gave similar success rates to users. But Google shone in terms of customer satisfaction, which goes to show that search is a potentially fickle brand game, resting on perceptions and preferences rather than performance. A couple of observations:
- These kinds of test are often skewed toward simple, factual look-ups. That's not necessarily what people's real-life inquiries look like, however. Factual research is often part of larger, more complex problems a user is trying to solve. The test might say something about these services' quality relative to each other, but not suitability to all real-life research tasks.
- Real-life searching is often not confined to a search engine or the content it can point to; savvy users view search engines as finding tools, not sources, and often use search engine results as just a first step toward finding experts and sources beyond what's available on the open Web. This kind of test doesn't measure the relative effectiveness or importance of search engines in the entire arsenal of research tools users have available.
Source

Popular posts from this blog

Why 2025 Will Redefine Mobile Connectivity

As international travel rebounds to pre-pandemic levels in 2025, the mobile communication roaming market is at an inflection point. Emerging technologies and changing customer preferences are challenging traditional wholesale roaming agreements between mobile network operators (MNOs). The global wholesale roaming market is projected to more than double, from $9 billion in 2024 to $20 billion by 2028. This surge will be fueled by the expanding deployment of 5G Standalone (SA) technology, which enables real-time roaming connections and activity monitoring. But beneath this headline figure lies a complex landscape of regional variations and technological mobile service disruptions. Global Mobile Roaming Market Development Western Europe dominates inbound roaming connections, largely thanks to its Roam Like at Home (RLAH) initiative, which eliminates roaming charges among member countries.  Meanwhile, the Indian Subcontinent is emerging as a growth hotspot. Between 2024 and 2029, inbou...