Tomorrow morning starts my 8 hours of presenting for our first SEOmoz training seminar. As such, I have very limited time for blogging tonight, but I wanted to share this hard-to-believe piece of data:
According to Compete.com (who buys their data from ISPs and has some "proprietary" methods of traffic monitoring as well), Yahoo! is the most successful engine at getting users to "click" a result. This would suggest that Yahoo!'s customer satisfaction rate with their results may actually be the highest and that Yahoo! is doing the best job of the three major engines in turning searchers into site visitors. Check out what else they have to say:
...Lower search fulfillment numbers mean that on a percentage basis fewer search queries on that engine resulted in the searcher clicking on a result link. So from this perspective one might consider Yahoo! more effective at getting consumers the results they want....
This data actually matches somewhat with reports that Yahoo! traffic is higher converting higher than Google (source: WebSideStory), though MSN supposedly has the highest conversion rate. Yahoo! also supposedly does the best job of keeping traffic on their domain - forwarding search referrals to Yahoo! properties like News, Sports, Entertainment, Answers, etc. - perhaps there's a correlation.
I don't have a good answer here, and I can't say for certain if the research is accurate, but it certainly would be interesting to see whether Yahoo! users actually feel more satisfied with their results. As we've often seen - just because a product is better at satisfying the customer doesn't mean the customer feels more satisfied with that brand. Perhaps that is the non-Googlers' biggest hurdle to overcome.
Matt Cutts gives a pretty good explanation in his comment
"sometimes you can get the answer you want right from a search engine snippet, and don’t need to click on anything"
Patrik I see you everwhere :)
I can think of no instance where Matt's explanation rings true except perhaps when checking the spelling of a word.
And how much of a traffic segment is 'ounces in a shot' anyway?
If Google is trying to explain away a 10% difference in CTR, the PhD pigeons need to have a better answer than that.
There are quite a few instances - these days SEOs are making better use of description tags - and very often when looking fo telephone numbers, the SERP is enough...
Yes, I agree. I realized Google is getting more efficient in that way, sometimes you don't need to click to see the information you are looking for because instead of showing the meta description tag under the website title, google puts the information you requested on the search.
Aaron and Patrick already called it - Google has a lot more 'search fulfilment' on the SERP.
Onebox for movies and weather, universal for images, maps and news, phone numbers, checking spelling, performing calculations, satisfactory snippet results - different users have different fulfilment criteria.
That is, not everyone is 'searching' on a search engine anymore, and this is presumably more pronounced on the default engine of choice.
For example, my colleague mentioned in passing "Did you see the Tottenham and Aston Villa game this morning?"
"Nope, but let me Google it"
I typed in Tottenham Aston Villa and received a very fresh news link as the first result.
The snippet showed:
"Tottenham Hotspur 4 Aston Villa 4: Catcalls turn to cheers as ... - 34 minutes agoHaving seen Aston Villa go 4-1 up, Jol's men responded with three goals in the last 22..."
Boom. I find my colleague at our coffee machine and we have an insta-conversation over Spurs' incredible comeback.
Now, if I try the same query on Yahoo! UK - not quite so fresh, and not quite as fulfilled :(
Excellent Example!!!!!!!!
What results are yahoo getting users to click though if they get outmonetized by Google on a per query basis?
I think MSN scores poorly due to worse relevancy and all the backfill searches from domain mistypes in IE that get redirected to Live.
Since Google is branded as the default search location I believe that also drives down their outbound CTR a bunch due to people using Google for stuff like looking up the weather, or a phone number, or movies that are playing, etc.
Yahoo!'s scores are also probably lifted by prominently displaying their internal content for celebrity searches and stuff like that...lots of low value high volume searches that Yahoo has associated editorial verticals for.
I guess the real question is, do they have more click throughs because people have to keep clicking to find what they are looking for?
I was just going to comment on this - higher # of clickthrus could be directly correlated to poor quality SERPs.
The stat you need to do accurate analysis on this issue is the ratio of clicksthrus to search queries.
great point!
One reason for that may be that Google users are typically more internet savvy and know that not every search result is a good one so they keep searching.
I think Yahoo users are more family and teens oriented who trust much more to the source.
The report only tells you the percentage of people who clicked but not if they were really happy with the result. ;)
There could be another reason as suggested by Westside Story :
“One way to explain the difference in conversion rates is demographics,” said Ali Behnam, senior digital marketing consultant for WebSideStory. “With portals rich in content and services, AOL, MSN and Yahoo may tend to appeal toward a more buyer friendly demographic. Google, meanwhile, may appeal to more browsers – those with less of an intent to buy.”
I have on occassion thought about the differences in the demographics of users of different search engines - wonder if there is any decent research out there worth looking at?
I agree with this part of the WSS report... portals do help qualify the searchers... sort contextual/behavioral.
i wonder if the results aren't skewed because most SEOs are obsessed with google and are checking their rankings all day??? ;)
the number of SEOS (millions at most) doesn't probably make up for 1% of the market share of the G,MSN,Y ....
- I think other anwers above are more likely...
/rb
i was kidding...i guess i should have clarified with a "LOL".
Kimber--I think you have a good point. I check my Google ratings more times than I can even admit to myself. I need a 12-step program... "My name is tinkerbellchime, and I'm a googlerholic."
I don't know why everyone is so surprised by this. I thought it was pretty much accepted that the Yahoo audience was more likely to click (and spend (time and money)) on search results.
Too much spam on Google. Too many people (probably a lot of us) are gaming it to get our pages to the top. And then when Google tries to correct for this to eliminate the spam and other junk - their search results become less relevant.
I feel Google jumped the shark a while ago as far as cutting edge search technology goes.
They are still the best out there - by default - but I think a lot of people are ready for the next generation of search.
Remember when we stopped using AltaVista?
Personally I've switched to Yahoo in 50% of the searches or more that I do. I will often compare the two, but generally find that for most mom and pop searches that I do that Yahoo comes up with less spam and higher quality sites, whereas Google might have more results but there's also generally more spam. It's probably got something to do with Google going after really fresh content much harder whereas Yahoo seems to be taking the time to properly index sites according to their overall standing.
Just my 2p, but as an example simply compare a search for 'travel blogs' in google and yahoo. Google comes up with 5 results that aren't relevant (2 individual blogs, 1 googlepedia result and 2 outdated articles) and Yahoo comes up with 1 that isn't (travelinblogs). 'start a travel blog' and things don't get much better...
One might say I'm biased as I own travellerspoint which definitely should be there on G, but I also own travelblogs.com which is listed on google and not on yahoo.
There is definately an element of spam - but he more refined your search in google, the better the results - i find with yahoo, if the results arent in the first 2 pages, then fine tuning wont help much .
That is so true, by refining my searches in google I usually am able to find exactly what I am looking for.
I usually start with a broad term and check out who is leading (more out of curiousity than anything). Then, I refine my searches to find more relavent pages.
I find that pretty baffling, I feel very dirty personally when I visit Yahoo instead of Google.
I feel like I just went to the fancy strip club when I use Google... Yahoo is like family.... pity I like strippers more than the relatives.
great post you have here ;-) thanks.i only use yahoo search for checking backlinks as it seems more accurate than other search engines
I'd like to throw in my own opinion of the two search engines.
I mostly use Google for two reasons. One, it loads the fastest when I open a new browser window and Two, i monitor my positions there and think that my positions in Google are more important than in any other Search Engine for obvious reasons. (Ok, what I mean is, from my observations, my position in Yahoo and MSN serps are always better than Google's so Google is the one I monitor most).
Yahoo is a great search engine, I used to use it solely for my searches before I started working in SEO and internet marketing. But I their home page takes longer to open, so It is not convenient for me.
MSN, is the worst of the three in my opinion, it takes for ever to load and therefore I never use it.
Results wise, I am surprised to see what complete.com report says about Yahoo, but I think it is well deserved. Yahoo does do a good job of providing results.
Thanks Rand for another interresting post. Good luck with your seminar.
I can't believe people are still actually opening either home page. Firefox plugins exist for both and are default if I'm not mistaken. Just switch at top right hand and search the other engine. They're equally fast used that way ...
lol... remember, we are talking of the masses here - you would be surprised at the number of people who dont know what FF is, or get confused with tabbed browsing...
Yeah, when one tries to measure abstracts like "fulfillment", "influence", "brand loyalty" etc. it's a given that the devil's in the details. In any case it's true that many things could contribute to higher CTR unto itself. Here's another thought:
"People searching at MSN and Yahoo! may be less web savvy, more gullible, and click on more ads on your site if they are unable to distinguish ads from content." - Aaron Wall, SEObook
Also worth considering are allegations of bias.
Non-quantified/quantifiable hypotheses aside, I'd say yes: it's about trying to estimate comparative click shares, i.e. per-rank CTRs, query volumes, and lastly, market shares. Do that, and one might find that on average, ranking 10th on Google converts more than ranking 4th on Yahoo, for example.
In order to know where to concentrate your SEO efforts (google, yahoo or Live) you need to know what search engine your target audience use more often. But I also think that if you don't have good position on google you are kind of losing an opportunity there. Google was the search engine most used on 2005 (37,3% see this info on Beginner’s Guide to SEO by SEOmoz) And is increasing, see data on ComScore Media Metrix
I think one other distinction that needs to be made here is, whether someone clicks through to a search result and then uses the back button, or if someone actually follows some action on the page the search result represents. Hitwise marks that distinction with a success rate. Poor relevance results will result in high clickthrough and low success rate, as folks have to repeatedly use the back button to find the right result, or even give up.
I guess a comparision of bounce rate of results served up by both search engines would be a useful indicator of the SE's success in serving up the "right" content...
Just had a thought - How do the clickthroughs from Natural Search in Yahoo compare to the Paid Search and how do those figures compare to Google?
If googles Paid Search click throughs are significantly higher than Yahoo - that should skewer the results slightly?
This is definitely the case with most of my websites. Especially with my more commercial websites
I started using Yahoo! after Webcrawler seemed a little too slow when searching for old Nintendo games-- that feels like an eon ago (well, it was)! Yahoo! does a great job for news related searches, especially sports stuff. My confession is that I use Yahoo! quite a bit more than Google, though I have no idea which one is the true underdog.
Good thread. Alot of great and varied insight - most all of which I would suspect has some level of credence. I beleive this certainyl must have something to do with the comparative users bases - I think Google's is more technically sopohisticated; the sheer volume of indexed pages of G vs Y - much more content for Google to deal with, the way the SERPs are returned, Google more link weighted versus Yahoo more content weighted, and so on, and so on...
Yahoo is a better buy conversion rate wise but Google has the volume...
On some of our sites Yahoo is worth less than 10% of traffic so who really cares if their users are more satisfied? We target all the search engines so these numbers don't really mean much to me personally.
But it is interesting from an academic standpoint if it's true.
But if you could target a certain demographic, and find out that the conversion from Yahoo is better for your product, wouldnt you spend more time improving your position on Yahoo?
Sometimes targeting sheer volume (such as with google) isnt the only strategy, running after high conversion traffic could turn out to be just as profitable. Obviously this depends on your own individual Business Objectives...
yes rishil, I kind of answer your question two post above yours
I agree with Matt Cutts. I often use Google and find my answer without clicking on anything. And like Matt suggests, I sometimes use it to spellcheck.
me too! may be foreign language users use google for that purpose (spell check) even more often.
That's true. I use Google every time I'm not sure how to spell a word. And even more often I use Google to compose phrases in English - just type some words and see how they are used. It usually takes a dozen of such searches to write just a paragraph of English text. So I should admit that in about 50% of searches, I use Google as an English language reference.
I think Google is too popular to be just a search engine. Many people use it many creative ways. Spell checker, universal reference, SEO tool to check site position, etc. - and you don't have to click links at all.
I dont know if the results were from the same propotion of population - but if looking at the overall population - I would porbably say these results were skewred by natural behaviour - if Yahoo has a smaller search share, then it means it serves fewer people, and as aresult easier to "serve" them. With google, the scale is too large to be efficient to serve as a one search satisfaction - d there is a lot of "search noise" where people search for details and bits and bobs... as opposed to clicking through straight away.
If both Yahoo! & Live had higher fulfillment than G, I would probably have looked at the possibility of a great proportion of navigational queries, but Y! can't be such an outlier on that, I wouldn't have thought.
This is a great post Rand, gets a little bit more into detailed, and I think personally as a SEO someone must be able to think very logical, and have a statisical brain set. If that made any sense.
I get most of my traffic from Google speaking all of our keywords are like setting on the 3rd page on Yahoo, but then were on the front page for Google for some of the most competitive keywords in our niche, but I'm going to pay close attention to analytics, and etc and watch what is converting better and etc.
Interesting one... are these stats from US only? Over here I am pretty sure that MSN is classed as the SE containing the most spam... I hardly think it woudl compare with Yahoo! and Google for 'fullfillment'...
I must say Dustin's comment about feeling 'dirty' when searching Yahoo made me chuckle! I do feel a bit like 'this is wrong' lol when I search there!
I also have to agree with TommyM's comment... I think that perhaps there are indeed more savvy users on Google.. this would perhaps skew things a little.. as does Yahoo's internal linking within the SERPs
As the admin for a real estate site, I can second your results Rand. Our analytics indicate that Yahoo, and MSN, users stay for more pages and convert better than Google.
Our pageviews/visit always come in higher from those referrers.
Ironically that was a well known fact in the real estate seo market. For some odd reason the leads that came through yahoo seemed to work a lot better than Google. I had to confirm this with a few other SEOs but that was the honest to God truth. Now if we could just figure out how to rank for Google and yahoo both while keeping our unrelated domain names. Thanks for confirming this for me though Rand.
You sure better get your sleep Rand, cause you'll have to be as bright eyed and bushy tailed as I!
I find that for my small business clients they are found more easily on Yahoo and higher in the results. This post does not surprise me.
well may be you have to improve their ranking on google. My websites receive far more referring from google than yahoo and I know is because I put more effort to get good positioning on google and I don't really care about yahoo because those visitors that come from google are good enough. So it depends on where you want to concentrate your SEO efforts and it also depends on what search engine your clients' target audience use.
Now dont murder me for suggesting this, BUT very often for large clients we dig all our efforts into optimising for Google - which is probably why the Moms and Pops get better chances with appearing in Yahoo searches...
Generally if you rank well in Google over time you also rank well in Yahoo, so I'm not sure how that holds up. That is unless all your efforts go into more spammy sides of SEO :)
Thats not entirely true - there are white hat techniques that are exclusive to google - Yahoo for instance ignores no follows, doesnt consider internal page rank as strongly as Google does...
Infact - I feel brave enough to say that Yahoo is more sussceptible to spam... so if anything, the results would be the other way round.
Don't forget to consider how Yahoo's use of opendns might skew those numbers...though shady, the "results" provided are pretty accurate, which could result in a higher CTR, like solid generic parked pages do.