Online Users Slow to Respond to Real-Time Search
03 March 2010
Oneupweb, an internet marketing agency that focuses on search engine optimization and ensuring that internet users find their clients, recently released results of a study they conducted to evaluate use of real-time search results.
Most major search engines have added real-time results to their toolboxes, including live updates from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media, as well as from headlines and blog postings. Oneupweb compared two groups of users to see if they recognize and understand the new search results by tracking their eye movements while they were conducting searches.
The 'consumer group' searched for a product they wanted to buy, and the 'forager group' searched for information about a particular product. The consumer group took an average of nine seconds for their eyes to focus on real-time search results, compared with fourteen seconds for the forager group, and they clicked on such results 10% less often than those in the forager group. Only 55% of participants found the real-time results easily.
Lisa Wehr, Oneupweb’s founder and CEO, said, Search engines are feeling the pressure to better meet real-time demands, and the evolution of search is headed toward a higher degree of social integration. It’s early yet, and everyone is still learning to adapt. It may be slow going at first, but those businesses that are the first to embrace this new kind of search will be the ones that succeed in the end.
A copy of the study, called 'Search Gone Wild: An Eye Tracking Study On Google’s Real-Time Results', can be downloaded from Oneupweb.com.
