Traversing the "Googlearchy"

baloney farmer writes "How much do search engines influence the availability of information online? A new study gives some surprising results. Search engines help with popularity, but not as much as you'd think: 'Traffic increased far less than would be expected if search engines were enhancing popularity. It actually increased less than would be predicted if traffic were directly proportional to inbound links. In the end, it appears that each inbound link only increases traffic by a factor of 0.8. The results suggest that the reliance of web users on search engines is actually suppressing the impact of popularity.'"

i can see that

[User 956]

In the end, it appears that each inbound link only increases traffic by a factor of 0.8. The results suggest that the reliance of web users on search engines is actually suppressing the impact of popularity.'

I can agree with that. I've seen users type "yahoo.com" into the search bar in firefox... which goes to the google search results page, where they then click on the "Yahoo!" link. It's almost as if users are conditioned to use "search" as their first action, regardless of whether they can remember the domain or not.

Re:i can see that

[XorNand]

What you describe is actually *very* common for novice 'net users. In fact, I might say that more of them do it than don't. Check out AOL's recently released search data [dontdelete.com]. Just randomly check out various users' search histories. It would be interesting to see how this correlates to the frequency of Google users doing the same thing.

Stating the obvious as if its not

[davros-too]

Sites with more links have more visitors (as defined by Alexa ranking, a rough tool at best) - big surprise , NOT. Everyone knows that sites with more inbound links tend to rank higher on the search engines and therefore get more visitors.

TFA then tries to make a big thing out of their 'discovery' that links are not the _only_ factor in the popularity (however defined) of a website. Again, completely obvious.

Then we hear that the correlation (not defined clearly) between links and 'traffic' (presumably actually some Alexa rank) is 0.8. Not clear what this actually means, but its hardly surprising the relationship between links and traffic isn't 1:1. Many factors will be causing this. For example, site-wide links off large sites make a huge contribution to the number of links but will make a smaller contribution to the target site's search engine ranking than the same number of links each from an individual site.

Re:Time spent searching

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo! When I worked in newspaper management, one metric in our readership studies was the amount of time each day the reader spent with the paper. Longer was considered better, as it indicated people were finding many things (articles, ads, crosswords, whatever) that warranted their time. The irony, however, was that one of the main points of the redesigns that were done every few years was to consolidate information (such as 'news at a glance' pages) and to make it easier for the reader to find what they were looking for. If done right, time spent with the paper would decrease -- which would show up in the next market study, and be considered a bad thing.

Search results still crucial to some businesses

[QuantumFTL]

Not to obnoxiously plug, but lylix.net [lylix.net], a Linux/Asterisk VPS host that I consult for, has gone from a single-man show with few customers to nearly overflowing with incoming business as a result of an aggressive "white hat" SEO campaign - mostly just putting up good content on the site in a format that search engines like (and probably also the thousands of links from slashdot from my sig/homepage).

These results surprised me very much - I've gotten over a thousand hits on lylix.net as a result of my postings in the last month and a half, but this is easily dwarfed by lylix's position as the 3rd hit for 'asterisk VPS', first for 'linux asterisk vps', and being 4th-5th page for just "VPS".

For those who can put up quality content and carve out a decent search rank, Google is a veritable gold mine. Yes, it's possible that looking at the internet through Google's lens gives a skewed perspective, but it's still the best way to find most things. Word-of-mouth is find for big sites, or niche sites known by your friends, but I can honestly say I do not find most things online that way.

Re:Self-reenforcing cycle?

[UnHolier than ever]

for the Seattle Mariners - there's pretty much only one way to type that.

Yeah, right, Ciatel cannot be written any other way. Like every other word of the english language, Siahtel is the perfect example of a uniquely constructed word. Whether you live in See-attel or do not live in Sea-atle, the correct spelling of Seateul is obvious.