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I always find this peculiar when google says they found users were doing fewer searches when they increased the # of results on the serp to 20 or 30. Maybe when

by kiddo 17y ago

I always find this peculiar when google says they found users were doing fewer searches when they increased the # of results on the serp to 20 or 30. Maybe when a user sees more results they find what they were looking for more quickly, and so don't have to do another search. Yet google always turns this around and says this is bad because users do fewer searches. I guess from google's perspective, revenue-wise, it's bad. But from a user's perspective, it's good. Do no evil?

pyre 17y ago
I don't think that hitting the 'next page of results' counts as a search. And whether they display 10 results initially forcing the user to hit 'next' twice to see all 30 results instead of just displaying 30 results outright... the search result set is still the same. If those 30 results don't contain what the user is looking for, they will still have to perform another search. I guess this is assuming that people don't just re-search with different terms if what they are looking for isn't right there on the first page.
- jonknee 17y ago
  > I guess this is assuming that people don't just re-search with different terms if what they are looking for isn't right there on the first page. Which I do all the time. I don't dispute that faster=better, but I have always been skeptical of Google's claim of just how much better.
gojomo 17y ago
Whenever Mayer trots out this same story, I think the same thing: "Why of course they search less, they find a good-enough result past #10, before either reformulating or next-paging!" That makes a lot more sense to me than her usual spin, which is that the extra lag discourages more searches. There's are reasons Google might prefer reformulation and next-paging beyond just "ad impressions": it gives better feedback about user's intent for training relevance algorithms. That is, they learn more from your second query formulation to get a better result than if you just find a good-enough result at #11. Or, if you open multiple results in background tabs before deciding the best, by forcing you to express click-intent to get past #10, they get a stronger signal as to whether the top ten results were good enough. (I always set my result count to 100, and often open 3+ results based on snippets, some from below #10, before viewing any of the target pages.)

by kiddo 17y ago

pyre 17y ago

I don't think that hitting the 'next page of results' counts as a search. And whether they display 10 results initially forcing the user to hit 'next' twice to see all 30 results instead of just displaying 30 results outright... the search result set is still the same. If those 30 results don't contain what the user is looking for, they will still have to perform another search. I guess this is assuming that people don't just re-search with different terms if what they are looking for isn't right there on the first page.

jonknee 17y ago
> I guess this is assuming that people don't just re-search with different terms if what they are looking for isn't right there on the first page. Which I do all the time. I don't dispute that faster=better, but I have always been skeptical of Google's claim of just how much better.

gojomo 17y ago

Whenever Mayer trots out this same story, I think the same thing: "Why of course they search less, they find a good-enough result past #10, before either reformulating or next-paging!" That makes a lot more sense to me than her usual spin, which is that the extra lag discourages more searches. There's are reasons Google might prefer reformulation and next-paging beyond just "ad impressions": it gives better feedback about user's intent for training relevance algorithms. That is, they learn more from your second query formulation to get a better result than if you just find a good-enough result at #11. Or, if you open multiple results in background tabs before deciding the best, by forcing you to express click-intent to get past #10, they get a stronger signal as to whether the top ten results were good enough. (I always set my result count to 100, and often open 3+ results based on snippets, some from below #10, before viewing any of the target pages.)