• by Larry Dobrow , August 3, 2004

Survey results released earlier this week have confirmed what search engine disciples have been saying for the last 18 months: search has become an integral part of the Internet experience for a majority of Web users in the United States.

The report, What Is America Searching For?, revealed that 48 percent of respondents use a search engine every day, and that Internet users conduct around two searches on a typical day. The poll was commissioned by MSN and conducted by Harris Interactive.

Several of the results didn't exactly surprise. Searchers in Los Angeles, for instance, were more likely to enter entertainment-themed queries than their New York counterparts, who expressed more interest in investments and other financial topics. Men searched for information about automobiles, technology, and science more than women, and younger users actively sought out blind dates, while so-called mature adults (59 and up) pursued ancestry and family history topics.

Participants took a personal approach to searching, too. Nearly 40 percent said they have searched for themselves, 29 percent for a family member, 36 percent for long-lost friends, and 17 percent for an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend.

If the survey results have a shortcoming, opines Ellen Siminoff, president and CEO of search engine marketing firm Efficient Frontier, it's that they don't delve especially deep into the commercial aspects of search. "You found out that people frequently look themselves up--from there do they take advantage of genealogy sites?" she wonders. "People have looked into various companies--from there, do they take advantage of job opportunities?"

The survey also revealed a rise in user satisfaction with searches. Sixty-nine percent affirmed that search engines are the "fastest way" to find information, while only 27 percent of respondents said they "sometimes or rarely" find what they're looking for. Still, MSN Product Manager for Search Justin Osmer believes there's room for improvement.

"While most people are satisfied with their search engines, we want to learn how to help the 27 percent of users who don't always find what they want," he says. To this end, the company will launch a new algorithmic search engine within the next year.

Another goal of the survey was to call more attention to the recently launched MSN Search home page. The most recent Nielsen//NetRatings data unveiled three weeks ago shows MSN ensconced in third place in terms of audience reach, or the estimated percentage of U.S. Internet users to have searched on a site at least once during a given month. Slightly more than 27 percent of the 42,000 Web surfers measured conducted a search via MSN during June, compared with 41.6 percent for Google and 31.5 percent for Yahoo!.

As for other members of the search community, they seem to have found the results interesting, if not particularly illuminating. "What I took out of it is that we're seeing a different type of segmentation," says Efficient Frontier's Siminoff. "[Search] used to be segmented by experience--newbies versus the first wave of adopters. Now, you're seeing it [segmented] along demographic lines, which is what we saw in other media."

More than 2,200 adults dispersed throughout the United States participated in the survey, which was conducted between June 25 and July 6.