UNIT - 1 : The Search

UNIT - 1 : The Search Engines

Prepared By:

Kapadia Ruchita(Shree Brahmanand Institute of Computer Science)

Topics :

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• Mission Of Search Engine

• The market share of Search Engines

• The Human Goals of Searching

• Determining searchers Intent

• How people Search?

• How Search Engines Drive Commerce on the web?

• Eye Tracking : How User Scan Results Pages?

• Click Tracking : How Users Click on Result?

• Natural V/S paid•

Introduction

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• SEARCH HAS BECOME INTEGRATED INTO THE FABRIC OF OURSOCIETY.

• With more than 12 billion searches being performed each month as ofJanuary 2009 (according to comScore), approximately 400 million websearches are performed every day.

• This means that on average more than 4,500 searches areperformed every single second of every day.

• As Google owns approximately 65% of the search market share,Google’s search technology handles more than 2,900 searches persecond. In addition, users have grown to expect that the responses totheir search queries will be returned in less than one second.

• Now people can obtain information in mere seconds—information that20 years ago would have required a trip to the library, a processthat could easily have consumed two hours or more.

Introduction (Contd.)

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• This dramatic shift in behaviour represents whatinvestors like to label a disruptive event—anevent that has changed something in afundamental way.

• Search engines are at the center of this disruptiveevent, and having a business’s website rank wellin the search engines when people are looking forthe service, product, or resource it provides iscritical to the survival of that business.

The Mission of Search Engines

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• Search engines generate revenue primarily through paidadvertising. The great majority of this revenue comes from a pay-per-click (or cost-per-click) model, in which the advertiserspay only for users who click on their ads.

• There are many free search engines available on the web tosearch specific information. Therefore, Search Engine hascompetition to develop a relevant, fast and fresh searchexperience.

• As a result, search engines invest a tremendous(huge) amount oftime, energy, and capital in improving their relevance.

• This includes performing extensive studies of userresponses to their search results, comparing their resultsagainst those of other search engines.

The Mission of Search Engines

• Because the search engines’ success depends on therelevance of their search results, manipulations ofsearch engine rankings that result in non-relevantresults (generally referred to as spam) are dealt withvery seriously.

• Each major search engine employs a team of peoplewho focus solely on finding and eliminating spam fromtheir search results.

• This matters to SEO practitioners because they need tobe careful that the tactics they employ will not be seenas spam by the search engines and carry the risk ofresulting in penalties for the websites they work on.

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The Mission of Search Engines

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The Market Share of Search Engines

• Below Figure 1-1 shows the U.S. market share forsearch engines in March 2012, according to

comScore. As you can see,Googledominant searchengine on the Web

is thein the

United States.

• However, in some markets Google is notdominant. In China, for instance, Baidu is theleading search engine.

• The result is that in most world markets, a heavyfocus on SEO is a smart strategy for Google.

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The Market Share of Search Engines

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The Market Share of Search Engines

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The Human Goals of Searching

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• The basic goal of a human searcher is to obtain informationrelevant to their inquiry.

• However, searcher inquiries can take many different forms.One of the most important elements to building an onlinemarketing strategy for a website around SEO and searchrankings is developing a thorough understanding of thepsychology of your target audience.

• Once you understand how the average searcher, and morespecifically, your target market, uses search engines, youcan more effectively reach and keep those users.

• Search engine usage has evolved over the years, but theprimary principles of conducting a search remain largelyunchanged.

Steps for Comprise Search Process

• Experience the need for an answer, solution, or pieceof information.– For example, the user may be looking for a website

(navigational query) to buy something (transactionalquery) or to learn something (informational query).

• Formulate that need in a string of words and phrases(the query).– Most people formulate their queries in one to three

words.

• Execute the query, check the results, see whether yougot what you wanted, and if not, try a refined query.

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Who Searches and What Do TheySearch For?

• Accordingly research made by comScoreSearch engine users were slightly more likelyWomen (50.4%) than Men(49.6%).

• Internet usage increases with householdincome.

• All of this research data leads us to some importantconclusions about web search and marketing throughsearch engines.

• ComScore reported that the number of search queriesperformed on the web was approximately 12.6 millionacross all engines

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Conclusion about Web Search

• Search is very, very popular. It reaches nearlyevery online American and billions of peoplearound the world.

• Google is the dominant player in most worldmarkets.

• Users tend to use short search phrases, butthese are gradually getting longer.

• Search covers all types of markets.

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Determining Searcher Intent: A Challenge for Both Marketersand Search Engines

• Smart SEO practitioners and the search engines have acommon goal of providing searchers with results that arerelevant to their queries.

• Therefore, a crucial element to building an onlinemarketing strategy around SEO and search rankings is tounderstand your audience.

• Search engine marketers need to be aware that searchengines are tools—resources driven by intent.

• Using the search box is fundamentally different fromentering a URL into the address bar

• Searches are performed with intent; the user wants to findsomething in particular, rather than just land on it byhappenstance.

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Types of Queries

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• There is three different types of queries, theircategories, characteristics, and processes.

– Navigational Queries

– Informational Queries

– Transactional Queries

Navigational Queries

• Navigational searches are performed with the intent ofsurfing directly to a specific website.

• In some cases, the user may not know the exact URL,and the search engine serves as the “White Pages.”

• Opportunities: Pull searcher away from destination; getancillary or investigatory traffic.

• Average value: Generally low, with the exception ofnavigational searches on the publisher ’s own brand,where the value is very high as these types of searchestend to lead to very high conversion rates.

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Navigational Query Example

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Informational Queries

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• Informational searches involve a huge range of queries—forexample, local weather, maps and directions, details on the latestHollywood awards ceremony, or just checking how long that trip toMars really takes.

• Informational searches are primarily non-transaction-oriented• The information itself is the goal and no interaction beyond clicking

and reading is required.• Opportunities: Brand searchers with positive impressions of your

site, information, company, and so on; attract inbound links; receiveattention from journalists/researchers; potentially convert to signup or purchase.

• Average value: Middling. Note, though, that informational queriesthat are focused on researching commercial products or servicescan have high value.

Informational Query Example

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Transactional Queries

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• Transactional searches don’t necessarilyinvolve a credit card or wire transfer.

• Signing up for an account at eBay, creating aGmail account, paying a parking ticket, orfinding the best local Mexican cuisine fordinner tonight are all transactional queries.

• Opportunities: Achieve transaction (financialor other).

• Average value: Very high.

Transactional Query Example

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Research on Queries

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• Research by Pennsylvania State University and the QueenslandUniversity of Technology shows that more than 80% of searches areinformational in nature and only about 10% of searches arenavigational or transactional.

• The researchers went further and developed an algorithm toautomatically classify searches by query type. When they tested thealgorithm, they found that it was able to correctly classify queries74% of the time.

• The difficulty in classifying the remaining queries was vague(notclear) user intent, that is, the query could have multiple meanings.

• When you are building keyword research charts for clients or onyour own sites, it can be incredibly valuable to determine the intentof each of your primary keywords.

How People Search

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• Search engines invest significant resources into understanding howpeople use search, enabling them to produce better (i.e., faster,fresher, and more relevant) search engine results.

• For website publishers, the information regarding how people usesearch can be used to help improve the usability of the site as wellas search engine compatibility.

• Data from comScore provides some great insight into what peopleactually search for when they perform a search.

• This shows that people search across a very wide number ofcategories.

• Search engines are used to find information in nearly every portionof our lives.

• In addition, user interactions with search engines can be a multistepprocess.

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How Search Engines Drive Commerce on the Web

• People make use of search engines for a wide variety ofpurposes, with some of the most popular being toresearch, locate, and buy products.

• It is important to note that search and offline behaviorhave a heavy degree of interaction, with search playinga growing role in driving offline sales.

• A Yahoo! study from 2007 showed the following:– Online advertising drives $6 offline (in stores) for every $1

spent online.

– Search marketing has a greater impact on in-store sales liftthan display advertising—three times greater, in fact.

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How Search Engines Drive Commerce on the Web

• There is also a significant amount of interactionbetween search and local offline commerce.

• WebVisible and Nielsen produced a 2007 report onlocal search that noted:– 74% of respondents used search engines to find local

business information versus 65% who turned to printYellow Pages, 50% who used Internet Yellow Pages, and44% who used traditional newspapers.

– 86% surveyed said they have used the Internet to find alocal business, a rise from the 70% figure reported the yearbefore.

– 80% reported researching a product or service online, thenmaking that purchase offline from a local business.

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Eye Tracking: How Users Scan Results Pages

• Research firms Enquiro, Eyetools, and Diditconducted heat-map testing with search engineusers that produced fascinating(charming)results about what users see and focus onwhen engaged in search activity.

• Figure depicts a heat map showing a testperformed on Google.

• The graphic indicates that users spent the mostamount of time focusing their eyes in the top-leftarea where shading is the darkest.

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Eye Tracking

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Eye Tracking

• This research study also showed that different physicalpositioning of on-screen search results resulted in differentuser eye-tracking patterns.

• When viewing a standard Google results page, users tendedto create an “F-shaped” pattern with their eye movements

• focusing first and longest on the upper-left hand corner ofthe screen;

• moving down vertically through the first two or threeresults;

• moving across the page to the first paid page result; movingdown another few vertical results;

• and then moving across again to the second paid result.

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Blended Search

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• In May 2008, Google introduced the notion of Universal Search.This was a move from simply showing the 10 most relevant webpages (now referred to as “10 blue links”) to showing other types ofmedia, such as videos, images, news results, and so on, as part ofthe results in the base search engine.

• The other search engines followed suit within a few months, andthe industry now refers to this general concept as Blended Search.

• Blended Search, however, creates more of a chunking effect, wherethe chunks are around the various rich media objects, such asimages or video.

• Understandably, users focus on the image first. Then they look atthe text beside it to see whether it corresponds to the image orvideo thumbnail

Blended Search – Eye Tracking

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Blended Search – Eye Tracking

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• Users’ eyes then tend to move in shorter paths tothe side, with the image rather than the upper-left-corner text as their anchor.

• Note, however, that this is the case only when theimage is placed above the fold, so that the usercan see it without having to scroll down on thepage.

• Images below the fold do not influence initialsearch behavior until the searcher scrolls down.

Click Tracking: How Users Click onResults, Natural Versus Paid

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• Everybody want to be on the top of the SERPs (SearchEngine Result Pages).

• It never hurts to be #1 in the natural search results butsome people may not want to be #1 in the paid searchresults because the resulting cost to gain #1 in paid searchresult can reduce the total net margin on your campaign.

• Many advertisers may seek the #1 position in paid searchresults for a number of reasons.– if they have a really solid backend on their website and are able

to make money when they are in the #1 position

• Even if your natural ranking is #1, you can still increase theranking page’s click rate by having a sponsored ad above itor in the right column.

Distribution of Search Results andTraffic

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Distribution of Search Results andTraffic

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• This example from Google shows how the paidresults appear above and to the right of thenatural search results.

• Note that Google often does not show paidresults above the natural results, in which casethe paid results show up only on the right.

• Your position in the results has a huge impacton the traffic you will receive. Here is somedata about that:

Distribution of Search Results andTraffic

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• 62% of search engine users click on a search result within the first page ofresults, and 90% within the first three pages.

• 41% of search engine users who continue their search when not finding whatthey seek report changing their search term and/or search engine if they donot find what they’re looking for on the first page of results; 88% report doingso after three pages.

• 36% of users agree that “seeing a company listed among the top results on asearch engine makes me think that the company is a top one within its field.”

• In addition, the first 10 results received 89.71% of all click-through traffic; thenext 10 received 4.37%; the third page 2.42%; and the fourth page 1.07%. Allother pages of results received less than 1% of total search traffic clicks.

• According to the study, 72% of searchers click on the first link of interest,whereas 25.5% read all listings first and then decide which one to click.

Click-through rate by SERP position

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Different Intents and Effects of Listings inPaid Versus Natural Results

• The AOL data in above figure demonstratedthat natural results get the lion’s share of clickresults.

• Further data from the Enquiro, Didit, andEyetools eye-tracking study shows whichresults users notice when looking at a searchresults page.

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Visibility Natural vs. Paid

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Additional Research

• 85% of searchers click on natural results.

• The top four sponsored slots are equivalent inviews to being ranked at 7–10 in natural search interms of visibility and click-through.

• This means if you need to make a business casefor natural search, then (assuming you can attainat least the #3 rank in natural search for the samekeywords you bid on) natural search could beworth two to three times your PPC (Pay Per Click)results.

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Interaction Between Natural and PaidSearch

• The study shows what happens when you incorporate naturalsearch into an existing paid search campaign and compare itsperformance to the performance of the sole paid search campaign.

• Figure summarizes the improvement in the results.

• A search page provides you with more than one opportunity to putyour name in front of the user.

• You should take advantage of this if you can. It is also useful tounderstand the difference between natural and paid search.

• Although some users do not understand the distinction betweennatural search results and paid search results, it is a well-acceptedbelief in the industry that the majority of users recognize paidsearch results as advertisements.

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Interaction Between Natural and PaidSearch

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Other Factors to Consider

• There are many other aspects to consider whenthinking about search and your business. Hereare some interesting examples:

• Number of visits before purchase– Only 43% of users who made a purchase on a site

made that purchase within an hour of their initial visitto the site.

• Presentation changes made by the search engines– Notice how the second listing (Yelp) looks different

from the rest of the results. The difference in the lookof the results really catches the eye, and cansignificantly impact click-through rates.

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Final Conclusion

• Search has penetrated the very fabric of global society. The waypeople work, play, shop, research, and interact has changed forever.

• Organizations of all kinds (businesses and charities), as well asindividuals, need to have a presence on the Web—and they needthe search engines to bring them traffic.

• As our society moves ever closer to a professional consumereconomy, the ways in which people create, publish, distribute, andultimately find information and resources on the Internet willcontinue to be of great importance.

• We will investigate further just how search, and therefore searchengine optimization, is at the center of the Web and is our key tosuccess in the new web economy.

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Quiz – 1

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• How many search being performed each month?• How many search being performed every day?• How many search being performed in every second of the day?• How many search being performed in every second of the day in

Google?• What is Disruptive Event and Dramatic Shift?• Search Engine has competition to develop a , and

content experience.• Search Engines invest a tremendous amount of , and

in improving their relevance.• What is Spam Content?• is the leading Search Engine in China.• Steps for Comprise Search Process.

Quiz – 2

• Three types of Search Query.• How many % of Informational Query?• How many % of Transactional Query?• Algorithm Classify % of the time correctly?• What difficulty in classifying the query?• What is Informational Query?• What is Transactional Query?• Opportunity and Average value of Navigational Query?• Example of Transactional Query• "winamp download" is which type of query?• Give an example of Informational + Transactional query.

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Quiz – 3

• Some most popular purpose of people for searching is ...

• In-store income is 9$ how much income is in display advertising

• Online advertising drive offline for every $4 spent online

• In survey there is 1000 people

• - How much uses search engines to find local information

• - How much uses traditional newspapers

• - How much uses Internet Yellow pages

• There is total 500 survey made

• - How much surveyed said they used internet

• Which testing method is used for Eye-Tracking?

• Which shape formed by result displayed in Arabic?

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Quiz – 4

• Most Relevant result web pages are called in BlendedSearch.

• What is Blended Search?

• Explain Eye-Tracking in Blended Search.

• What is Click Tracking?

• % searchers click on first link of interest, whereas %read all listings first and then click.

• % searchers click on a search result within first page.

• % searchers click on a search result within three pages.

• % searchers click on fourth position.

• % searchers click on third position.

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Quiz – 5

• At least the rank in natural search is meaningful.

• Interpret visibility between natural and paid.

• of searchers click on natural results.

• Explain different between Clicks and Actions.

• Which other factors are consider when doing SEO?

• Explain Number of Visits before purchase.

• Explain Presentation changes made by the search engines.

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Review Questions

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• Explain types of queries searcher used in Search Engine?• How users scan result pages? Explain through Eye Tracking.• How Click Tracking useful to identify importance of Natural results

vs paid result?• Describe layout of Search Engine Result Page.• Explain Mission and Market Share of Search Engine.• Explain Human Goals of Searching with Search Process.• Comment on "Determining Searcher Intent: A Challenge for Both

Marketers and Search Engines".• Explain paid v/s natural results. Which one is more preferable and

how.• Write a Short-note on Blended Search.• Explain the Interaction Between Natural and Paid Search.