Well, according to the latest report released by Hitwise released today. (PDF download), we are! According to this latest report by Hitwise, the interesting trend revealed is that the the search strings that people use are getting longer, with the biggest jump in people using 8 or more words query when compared with last year!
What does it mean? Well according to the general manager of Hitwise in this article, http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25261858-15318,00.html
"There is so much long tail (increasingly niche) content that internet users are finding it harder and harder to find,"
"The long tail is getting very difficult for search engine algorithms. We are seeing an increase in the number of words per query and a decrease in the success rate.”
“people were using more and more words in their search queries because they were dissatisfied with the results”
In summary, people are using more and more words in their search queries because they want more relevancy but were dissatisfied with the results.
My theory and the whole premise of Search1x.com is becoming a reality!! Well, I think anyway….
What’s my theory ?
My theory is that.
- People are becoming more comfortable with searching and combination of keywords
- People want more accurate results quicker
- People want more detailed niche information.
BUT
- The search engines are failing to deliver to the high standards people are expecting from the search engine
- This is partly due to people’s lack of skills in Search!
The importance of Search is increasing as the amount of searchable material is increasing. What is being left behind is people’s knowledge and skill around Search.
Whilst searching using a couple of keywords for generic concepts were largely a satisfying experience, using the same approach to tackle more challenging problems (such as searching for long tail contents) might not be the right answer.
In a way, I think it also partly explains the rise of specialist search engines (such as Google Blog search, and Twitter search), and in a way, specialist search engines can be part of the answer, as they definitely have a role to play
So are you?
So are you using longer query?
And are you getting disappointed with the search results?
There may finally be a shift in the way we all think about and use Search.
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Google search has not really changed at all over the years,, which explains why people are interested in other search engines such as Cuil.com