Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Consumer WebWatch Research: Consumers Often Confused by Paid Search Results on Search Engines: "False Oracles: Consumer Reaction to Learning the Truth About How Search Engines Work
Results of an Ethnographic Study"
"A year after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission determined there was a need for 'clear and conspicuous disclosures of paid placement' on search engines, Consumer WebWatch's research findings show consumers still cannot always tell what is 'paid' search versus 'pure' or 'algorithmic' search on America's most popular search engines. "
"Major Findings:
1. Most participants had little understanding of how search engines retrieve information from the Web or how they rank or prioritize links on a results page.
2. 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.
3. Once enlightened about pay-for-placement, each participant expressed surprise about this search engine marketing practice. Some had negative, emotional reactions.
4. All participants said paid search links on search and navigation sites were often too difficult to recognize or find on many sites, and the disclosure information available was clearly written for the advertiser, not the consumer. Search engine sites that were perceived to be less transparent about these related disclosures lost credibility amongst this group of online consumers."
Results of an Ethnographic Study"
"A year after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission determined there was a need for 'clear and conspicuous disclosures of paid placement' on search engines, Consumer WebWatch's research findings show consumers still cannot always tell what is 'paid' search versus 'pure' or 'algorithmic' search on America's most popular search engines. "
"Major Findings:
1. Most participants had little understanding of how search engines retrieve information from the Web or how they rank or prioritize links on a results page.
2. 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.
3. Once enlightened about pay-for-placement, each participant expressed surprise about this search engine marketing practice. Some had negative, emotional reactions.
4. All participants said paid search links on search and navigation sites were often too difficult to recognize or find on many sites, and the disclosure information available was clearly written for the advertiser, not the consumer. Search engine sites that were perceived to be less transparent about these related disclosures lost credibility amongst this group of online consumers."
http://www.hotbot.com/tools/
The HotBot Quick-Search Deskbar is based on the open source "Dave's Quick Search Deskbar," designed by Dave Bau for "search hounds with weary mouse-fingers." Like Dave's Deskbar, Hotbot's tool allows users to do searches while performing other desktop functions, like e-mail and word processing and more, without starting a Web browser.
The default search for the Deskbar is Hotbot.com, but you can easily reset that to Google.com if you prefer.
What makes the Deskbar so useful is that it also provides instant access to more than 200 other Web search sites, covering just about every topic imaginable.
You can launch any of those searches by typing in a short code before or after your search term. For example, just type in "ths word" in the search box and up pops Thesaurus.com, with scores of synonyms for "word."
If the codes are too hard to remember (most aren't), you can just click on the arrow at the right of the box and a menu of all the searches pops up. There's also a pretty easy guide to all of the codes that you can call up by entering "?"
What else can you do from this search box? What can't you do?
Other tools that you can use with just a simple command include:
Dictionary
Barlett's Familiar Quotations
Weather
Maps
Stock quote lookup
A calculator (enter "4*(pi-3)" into field and results appear there)
A currency converter
Phone number lookup (just add # at the end of the name)
E-mail address lookup (just add @ after the name)
Reverse phone number lookup
Language translation (add terms like en, fr, de, it, ja, es after phrase or Web URL)
The Web: type in a URL and a browser window opens on that Web page
An alarm that pops up on your screen
A calendar that pops up when you right click in the search box
Driving directions
An RGB to hex conversion utility
A Roman numeral calculator
Zip code and area code lookup
A computing dictionary
Encyclopedias
Instant searches of eBay, amazon.com, Internet Movie Database, CDNow.com
If you're feeling lucky, you can go directly to Google's first hit using an exclamation point: "Harry Potter!"
In fact, you can instantly search many of the sites Sree and I have written about in this column over the past year, including: FindLawcom, Xrefer Reference Search, RhymeZone, The Wayback Machine, HowStuffWorks, Google Groups, and the Snopes.com Urban Legends site.
And if a site you use regularly isn't listed, you can just add it!
The HotBot Quick-Search Deskbar is based on the open source "Dave's Quick Search Deskbar," designed by Dave Bau for "search hounds with weary mouse-fingers." Like Dave's Deskbar, Hotbot's tool allows users to do searches while performing other desktop functions, like e-mail and word processing and more, without starting a Web browser.
The default search for the Deskbar is Hotbot.com, but you can easily reset that to Google.com if you prefer.
What makes the Deskbar so useful is that it also provides instant access to more than 200 other Web search sites, covering just about every topic imaginable.
You can launch any of those searches by typing in a short code before or after your search term. For example, just type in "ths word" in the search box and up pops Thesaurus.com, with scores of synonyms for "word."
If the codes are too hard to remember (most aren't), you can just click on the arrow at the right of the box and a menu of all the searches pops up. There's also a pretty easy guide to all of the codes that you can call up by entering "?"
What else can you do from this search box? What can't you do?
Other tools that you can use with just a simple command include:
Dictionary
Barlett's Familiar Quotations
Weather
Maps
Stock quote lookup
A calculator (enter "4*(pi-3)" into field and results appear there)
A currency converter
Phone number lookup (just add # at the end of the name)
E-mail address lookup (just add @ after the name)
Reverse phone number lookup
Language translation (add terms like en, fr, de, it, ja, es after phrase or Web URL)
The Web: type in a URL and a browser window opens on that Web page
An alarm that pops up on your screen
A calendar that pops up when you right click in the search box
Driving directions
An RGB to hex conversion utility
A Roman numeral calculator
Zip code and area code lookup
A computing dictionary
Encyclopedias
Instant searches of eBay, amazon.com, Internet Movie Database, CDNow.com
If you're feeling lucky, you can go directly to Google's first hit using an exclamation point: "Harry Potter!"
In fact, you can instantly search many of the sites Sree and I have written about in this column over the past year, including: FindLawcom, Xrefer Reference Search, RhymeZone, The Wayback Machine, HowStuffWorks, Google Groups, and the Snopes.com Urban Legends site.
And if a site you use regularly isn't listed, you can just add it!
