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Longer Search Queries

April 20, 2009 | RSS | EMAIL | PRINT | 1 COMMENTS

Call this a followup. In February I asked if people are getting better at search: "In 2008 the average query length jumped from three to four words-per-search. Also, 25% of queries are unique to the last month (which seems like it would favor more specific searches)."

Well, looks like the trend is continuing. Hitwise reports that over 34% of search queries contain four-plus words and even better, eight-plus word queries are up 20% year-on-year (one-, two- and three-word queries all saw flat to declining growth year-on-year). Guess people are getting better at searching.

via Marketing.fm // Tags: culture, search


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COMMENTS

1nick

Noah -

Do you think there's some correlation to the increase in the complexity of content / and searches that go hand-in-hand with greater specificity in that content. It strikes me that as we progress the level of content complexity must double on the internet in a similar method to Moore's Law - it would be an interesting study/theorem. Not only is total data size doubling at an increasing rate, but concurrently there is an exponential effect as the depth of information on more and more specific subjects becomes apparent and available. It's like Moore's Law x Long Tail = huge quantities of increasingly specific information...

n

April 21, 2009