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Study Shows Google Results Is Perceived as More Relevant

Search Engine Strategies Toronto conference reports that most people believe that Google gives the most relevant results out of all search engines. CEO of research firm Enquiro, Gord Hotchkiss, started the speaking panel at the conference and discussed his "Golden Triangle" study. The Golden Triangle is triangle-shaped viewing pattern that reaches out from the top left of the search results page that "traps" the bulk user eyeballs. According to the new data from Hotchkiss, the Golden Triangle is not limited to just Google. It works on MSN and Yahoo as well.

However, the Golden Triangle on MSN and Yahoo is apparently larger than it is on Google, which may not be a good thing for perceived relevancy. "At first glance one thing should stand out, which is the expansion of the scanning area on MSN and Yahoo!," Hotchkiss told the standing room only crowd. "People had to go deeper on the page and look around more to find what they were looking for." Search users do not want to have to look around more. That has not to say that Google results are necessarily more relevant from an actual search results point of view than either MSN or Yahoo. It is just that that Google results are "perceived" to be more relevant by users.

There are a number of reasons why Google results are perceived to be more relevant. For one, Google makes it easier for searchers to identify relevance by bold-typing the query term in the search results. Hotchkiss also noted that there is also a lot of contrast between the surrounding text and the query and more white space, making it easier to isolate the information set that users are looking for. The single most important aspect of search relevancy, according to Hotchkiss, is the title contained in the search result. He said the average participant took only 6.5 seconds to click their first link when scanning search results. In that time, they would read anywhere from 4 to 5 listings.