San Mateo, California - ( Website Hosting Directory ) - January 20, 2006 - Internet measurement company, Keynote Systems, has revealed that Google and Yahoo! continue to dominate the search engine industry as search companies continue to further expand their services in areas such as image and local search.
The Keynote Customer Experience Rankings for Search Engine Sites is based on an examination of 2,000 consumers as they searched and performed relevant tasks on the AOL Search, Ask Jeeves, Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo! Search sites. Keynote also performed the first ever service level study examining the responsiveness and reliability of the leading search engine sites. The study was conducted over a two-week period in late October 2005.
According to Dr. Bonny Brown, Director of Research and Public Services for Keynote, ''Google is still king of the web when it comes to search, and wins consumers' praise in relatively new search categories, such as image search, and continues to perform well in the more established search categories. Despite active competitive maneuverings, Google's challengers have yet to break the leader's grip on consumers' affections, although each of the search engines has their own loyal following. The clear appeal of Google's homepage, as well as its presentation of sponsored ads and the overall usefulness of its ads continue to be important factors in Google's continuing success.''
For the fourth consecutive wave of the Keynote study, Google topped the Keynote Customer Experience Rankings, an aggregate ranking of leading search engines based on an analysis of 250+ metrics measured during the study. In fact, Google outperformed its competitors in all 13 business success drivers measured in the study, including those for general search quality, local search quality and image search quality.
Yahoo! Search ranked second in the study, Ask Jeeves third, MSN fourth and AOL's public site ranked fifth. The study ranked the public sites of each search engine in 13 different categories based on their performance with the general Internet population. The AOL Search subscriber site, the site dedicated to its subscribers, was also tested, and would have ranked third in these rankings. In fact, all search sites perform better with their frequent or regular users. However, only AOL has a separate site for those regular users, thus for comparison purposes only the AOL public site was ranked.
Keynote Customer Experience Rankings Search Engines ----------------------------------------------- 1 Google ----------------------------------------------- 2 Yahoo! Search ----------------------------------------------- 3 Ask Jeeves (AOL Search subscriber site(a)) ----------------------------------------------- 4 MSN Search ----------------------------------------------- 5 AOL Search public site ----------------------------------------------- (a) The AOL Search subscriber site ranked third when compared to other public sites in the study.
Yahoo! demonstrated its staying power in the latest study, holding its ground with Google, and posting a clear lead over its other competitors. Yahoo! remains in second place across 12 customer experience drivers measured by Keynote, including those for general and local search quality. However, Yahoo! performs most competitively with Google in the local and image search categories. When searching for local services or information, 82% of Yahoo! users reported task success, as compared to 83% of Google users, and 66% of Yahoo! users were very satisfied with their search as compared to 71% of Google users.
Dr. Brown continued, ''Google continues its dominance, but Yahoo! is more competitive in the newer categories such as local and image search.As these new categories gain in popularity and usage, this may offer an opportunity for Yahoo! to close the gap with Google.''
General search quality still has the greatest impact on the user experience for search engines. Ask Jeeves showed the largest increase in general search quality over the last year, while MSN had the largest improvement in this area in the past six months.
Despite the difference in perceived quality of search results, actual search quality differs little among the primary search engines. The latest Keynote study reconfirms those previous findings, and again demonstrates that Google and Yahoo! generate much of their satisfaction from additional factors aside from actual search quality.
The difference between the sites in terms of customer experience and customer satisfaction among their regular or primary users is relatively small as compared to the wide differences between the competitors among new users or infrequent users who do not have a primary search engine. For instance, among new and infrequent search engine users, 82% of those sent to search on Google were "very satisfied" with their experience, as compared to 53% "very satisfied" with their experience on MSN. However, among their regular or primary users, Google received a 92% satisfaction rate and MSN receives an 84% satisfaction rate.
Once users gain familiarity with a search site, their satisfaction and perceptions of that site tend to improve. All sites in the study saw improvements in their brand perceptions with new or infrequent users once those users had conducted several searches on their site. Ask Jeeves received the greatest jump in brand perceptions once new or infrequent users had searched on their site.
Despite the variances based on frequency of use, Google is the clear leader in Internet search and Yahoo! the clear number two search site across all types of users, and among the general Internet population.
Ask Jeeves showed improvement in the perceptions of its general search results by reducing the number of sponsored results at the top of the page. MSN's strongest performance was in the user perception of its search results as being up to date, and the presentation of its sponsored results. In fact, MSN was the only site to show improvement in the perception of its results being up to date. AOL's strongest performance was in the news search and product search categories, as well as in the special features category, and was driven primarily by the success of its subscriber search site.
To receive an abstract reviewing the customer experience rankings study, please visit: http://keynote.com/downloads/cem/Keynote_SearchCE.pdf .
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