How America Searches

location based services


New icrossing research shows where people are searching, and what they're looking for.
Over half of all U.S. online adults use search engines most or every time they are online, but less than half of search engine users know the difference between natural and paid search results, according to the "How America Searches" study launched last week from icrossing, a search engine marketing agency that commissioned the study from Harris Interactive.
"How America Searches" takes a detailed look at why people turn to search engines, which engines have the most loyal users, how well people can distinguish natural and paid results, and other questions.
"The more we understand about how consumers are searching, what they're looking for, and what their needs are, the better we can help marketers serve them," says icrossing CEO Jeffrey Herzog. "This report represents one more way for us to educate and inform the industry."
According to the report, 53 percent of all U.S. online adults use search engines most or every time they are online, trailing only email and general surfing as the activities most often done online.
The longer people have been online, the more likely they are to use search. But a notably strong 80 percent of those people who have been online for less than three years say they use search engines -- compared to 40 percent of this group citing ecommerce usage and 40 percent who say they use IM.
What are consumers searching for?
Researching specific topics is the number one search activity (by 88 percent of search engine users), followed by getting directions/maps (75 percent) and looking for news/information about current events (64 percent).
When people are researching specific topics using search, the topic is most often related to hobbies. Men are slightly more inclined to use the search medium to find more about their hobbies (64 percent) than women (55 percent), but in general, this is the most popular online search activity when specific topics are involved.
Women who use search engines to research specific topics are much more likely than their male counterparts to search for health or medical information. Among those who use search engines to research specific topics, 61 percent of women use search for medical information compared to 35 percent of men.
Only 28 percent of people researching a specific topic are searching for jobs or career-related sites. Women in this subset between the ages of 18 and 34 are the heaviest searchers for online career information.
When it comes to using the internet to find directions, nearly all online adults are specifically turning to search engines for driving directions (84 percent), with women more likely to "ask" for driving directions than men.
As has been cited in other recent studies, a good portion of today's younger population uses the internet as its primary source of news and information, and 50 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 34 who use the internet for news or to find information about current events indicate the internet is their primary source for such information. This percentage steadily decreases as age increases, although almost half of online adults use search to find alternative viewpoints about current events, with the older online segments more likely to do so.
With regard to entertainment, the majority (61 percent) of those using search are looking up show times or reviews. The younger population is more likely to download music or videos, with men doing so more than women.
Shopping is another activity consumers use search for. The majority of online adults who use search for shopping (80 percent) are comparing prices. Men (83 percent) are more likely than women (77 percent) to be comparing prices, and are also more likely than women to research products online (75 percent and 65 percent respectively).
There isn't a large gender difference among those looking for an online retailer, with 58 percent of people who use the internet instead of a phone book to locate specific (and mostly local) businesses. Somewhat fewer (38 percent) look for retailers or stores in another city.
However, the majority of online adults who are using the internet instead of the phone book (65 percent) search for addresses or phone numbers of people (rather than businesses).
According to the report, the data on the high usage of the internet as a phone book combined with the reliance on the net for searching for maps and directions, suggest that it will become increasingly critical for local retailers to be found online -- as critical as being in the yellow pages.
"Although exclusively from an online audience, these data echo what The Kelsey Group has found in its own research," says Greg Sterling, program director for The Kelsey Group, provider of strategic research and analysis, data and competitive metrics on Yellow Pages, electronic directories and local media. "Specifically, more and more consumers with broadband connections are using the internet for local lookups. And many of those consumers are turning to search engines for that information. Small businesses are clearly starting to recognize the importance of being in front of those online audiences, but getting them there is a more complicated matter."
Where are they searching -- and why?
Although many search engine users use Google (77 percent), people aren't loyal to any one search engine. Google claims the greatest percentage of users who use it exclusively (13 percent who use Google use it 100 percent of the time) compared to the other engines presented in the study, but there is still plenty of room for growth. Internet users continue to rely on a number of engines to satisfy their search needs.
AOL, Ask Jeeves, Google and Yahoo! users are strong hobby searchers. For Ask Jeeves users and MSN users, searching for medical and health information is the most popular reason for researching a specific topic. In fact, 88 percent of those who use Ask Jeeves for at least 33 percent of their searches look to search engines for maps and directions. This could be due to the fact of how the engine originally promoted itself as a question-response result system.
Also of note is 71 percent of Google users look for news and/or current events on search engines, which could be attributed to Google's heavy push of its news search function. Google users also tend to use search for business or professional research more so than other search engine users.
More than half of the survey respondents (56 percent) do not know the difference between natural and paid search listings, with Google users the most knowledgeable about the difference (54 percent vs. 42 percent for the next closest group, which is Yahoo! users.)
Males are more confident in reporting they know the difference -- over 50 percent of males say they know, compared to about one-third of females.
About half (51 percent) of search engine users who know the difference prefer natural results. Beyond those people, a greater number of respondents report having no preference than those who prefer both equally.
“The unique insights offered by iCrossing’s study are a great opening point for a much larger paid vs. unpaid discussion," says Kevin Ryan, principal, Kinetic Results, Inc. and iMedia search editor. "The ongoing debate as to which is better, natural or sponsored results, is best left to keyword-specific search activity and the ultimate question of relevance. When shopping for a vacation in Bali, for example, a user might appear to prefer a paid listing because it is more conducive to commerce. Conversely the same vacation planning searcher might be concerned about terrorist activity in the region and defer to natural results. In the end, knowing which audience segment prefers what could prove lucrative to the marketer seeking more accurate targeting,”
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