[Sigia-l] References for search quotes

[Avi Rappoport]

At 9:09 AM -0600 2/3/04, Donna M. Fritzsche wrote:
>>nice one mags...
>>http://www.currybet.net/articles/day_in_the_life/5.shtml
>>"I found that 36% of searches consisted of just one word and 35% of searches
>>used just two words. This is a vital point. Given the opportunity of
>>searching over the whole of the BBC site, or indeed the whole of the web,
>>the user's understanding or trust of search technology is such that they
>>believe that a limited one or two word search term will achieve their goals.
>>When we consider that the quantity of documents indexed for websearch is
>>counted in th

 From a search log, out of about 280,000 queries:
words	Searches
1	182,807
2	56,820
3	23,013
4	7,169
5	3,172
6	1,404
7	753
8	397
9	190

>>e thousands of millions, this is a formidable task. "
>
>  I wonder if its also an issue of presentation and suggestion.
>What if the size of the average search box was actually large enough 
>to handle several words well.
>The size of the box suggests expected behavior.

Yes, Nick Belkin did some work, reported at the CHI search UI 
workshop (PDF article) 
<http://home.earthlink.net/~searchworkshop/docs/belkin-final.pd>

>Also, what if it actually was suggested to users to try more than two words?
>Has anyone tried this?  It doesn't look as clean, but it might drive 
>user behavior.

But it's not always true: on match-all-words (Boolean 'and') 
searches, adding words will sometimes take you to a dead end.  Not 
usually a problem on Google, but smaller indexes can have trouble.

Avi
(yes, I'm back)
-- 
   Avi Rappoport, Search Engine Consultant <mailto:avirr at searchtools.com> 
   Complete Guide to Search Engines for Web Sites and Intranets
             <http://www.searchtools.com>