Sorry this site requires JavaScript to be enabled in your browser. See the following guide on How to enable JavaScript in Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox and Safari. Alternatively you may be blocking JavaScript with an advert-related or developer plugin. Please check your browser plugins.

Sphinn Home » SEM
Study: 80-Percent Of Searches Are Informational, 10% Are Navigational & Transactional
SEM News Source: http://searchengineland.com
Published: Apr 13, 2008 - 07:06 am
Story Found By: jeffquipp 1870 Days ago
Category: SEM
A great new study out of Penn State with reasonable accuracy suggests that only 10% of search requests are for transactional purposes.

Good information to have when constructing new content for client sites!
 Comments4 Comments  

Comments

Avatar
from billslawski 1870 Days ago #
Votes: 1

The paper is available on Dr. Jansen’s Web page (http://ist.psu.edu/faculty_pages/jjansen/) at Penn State’s web site, and was published last year:Determining the Informational, Navigational, and Transactional intent of Web Queries.http://ist.psu.edu/faculty_pages/jjansen/academic/pubs/jansen_user_intent.pdfData for the study appears to have come from Dogpile from 2005. Dan Russell, from Google, gave us a different and more detailed breakdown of query types from Google searches in a November 2006 presentation at Stanford. See: http://searchengineland.com/061218-231343.php

Avatar
from evan420 1869 Days ago #
Votes: 1

Thanks Bill for links to the full paper. My only concern with the data is in my own studies I’ve found that navigational searches make up 5-7x what they cite in this paper.I’m attributing their data collection sources - dogpile and infospace - as the reason for these percentages. Google has a nearly ubiquitous toolbar and is the "navigational gateway" for so many who bypass the browser address bar, so I have to think a new study using the major SE’s search logs, while improbable, would yield far different results.

Avatar
from bwelford 1867 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I would support the notion that the ’true numbers’ would show much more navigational searching based on what I see in referral logs.  Perhaps Google with its ’I’m feeling lucky’ button was on to something.

Avatar
from ClearSaleing 1866 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Does this look at each search as an independent event or does it look at the string of searches a particular user may have done in one browsing session?  We have found using our tracking technology that users that have intention to buy may start with what looks like an ’informational’ search, then get more granular with a ’transactional’ search, and then finish off with ’navigational’ search to get back to the site that they want to perform the transaction on.  When we look at this search pattern as a string vs. 3 independent searches it tells a different story. 

Upcoming Conferences

Search Marketing ExpoSearch Engine Land produces SMX, the Search Marketing Expo conference series. SMX events deliver the most comprehensive educational and networking experiences - whether you're just starting in search marketing or you're a seasoned expert.


SMX Web Site » | SMX Difference » | SMX News »

Join us at an upcoming SMX event:

Latest News From Marketing Land
Upcoming Webcasts

Digital Marketing Depot Learn more about search marketing with our free online webcasts and webinars from our sister site, Digital Marketing Depot. Upcoming online events include:


Webcasts:
Research:
Whitepapers:

See More Topics

Latest News From Search Engine Land