PORTALS
By LEE GOMES
What Are Web Surfers Seeking? Well, It's Just What You'd Think
One thing about us Internet users: We like our music, we like our
pictures, we like our sex -- and we like them all free.
Last week, AOL released a trove of what it thought were anonymous
Web-search data from 650,000 of its customers. While intending to help
researchers, AOL instead set off a privacy controversy because some of
the users could, in fact, be tracked down. But taking up AOL on its
original intentions, I got hold of the data set -- 2.27 gigabytes'
worth, loaded it into my shiny new SQL Server database software, and
started my own research project into how people really use the Web.
One learns, for instance, that excepting prepositions and
conjunctions, the most commonly used word in the 17.15 million
separate searches was "free." If something isn't free, it better at
least be "new," as that was the next-most common word.
Excluding proper nouns, the next most popular words were "lyrics,"
"county," "school," "city," "home," "state," "pictures," "music,"
"sale," "beach," "high," "map," "center" and "sex."
Ah, sex. The Web turns out to be every bit the domain of the unbounded
id we always thought it was. According to a research paper about the
data prepared by an AOL-led team, porn was the third most common
activity of Web searchers, behind entertainment and shopping. My study
showed that 14% of all users made some form of explicit sexual search.
And sex was No. 44 on the list of Greatest Hits words; usually, it's
around 2,500 for standard usage, such as in English-language novels.
Among the sex searchers, there were 50,549 inquires for nude pictures.
Perhaps for the first time in Internet history, the person most
requested wasn't Pamela Anderson. In fact, it wasn't even a woman, but
Peter Wentz, boyish singer of pop group Fall Out Boy. Ms. Anderson was
second, followed by Paris Hilton.
How good is the Web with queries not involving naked celebrities?
Users seem to think it needs improving, because in 47% of all
searches, they didn't click on any of the results presented to
them. (Although that could also mean they got the answer they needed
just from the information in the list of links they were given.)
The AOL researchers noted that 28% of all searches were refinements of
earlier searches, as users reshaped their queries to make the results
more in sync with what they were looking for.
For those searchers who did click on something, in 42% of the time,
they clicked on the first link presented to them. That factoid
explains why Web sites spend so much money boosting their
search-engine rankings.
In looking through all of the queries, I found 413,638 that were
questions, that is, beginning with one of the five W's. Some 35% of
these questioners never clicked on an answer, though I am not sure
what even the best search engine could have done with a question like,
"How to find your eye color."
How good is the Web at actually answering questions? I took a random
sample of 50 "question" searches, and then visited the Web page that
questioners had clicked on.
By my reckoning, 60% of these sites provided reasonable answers to
what the user wanted to know, which included, "How to propose to a
man," and "How to install more memory in a computer."
Unanswered queries included, "How to potty train a new puppy" and "How
strong are gymnasts." The first went to a company that sold dog food,
the second to a Russian gymnast training school looking to raise
money.
Returning to the list of most frequently used words -- I need to thank
Greg Sadestky of Poly9, fine purveyor of "mash up" map software, for
his help -- "Google" was the 17th most common. While some might scoff
at the notion of "searching for Google," it's actually efficient Web
surfing. You're relying on the friendly, type-fixing search box,
rather than the unforgiving URL bar at the top of your browser.
In the same vein, don't do what 15% of people in the sample did, and
include the full URL, including "http" and "www" and ".com" in the
search box. It's a waste of time and keystrokes.
The data were collected from March through May. Here are some random
searches, and the numbers for each: Britney Spears -- 3,938; God --
3,279; Madonna -- 1,881; Mother Teresa -- 165; Stephen Hawking -- 41;
Kofi Annan -- 12. While clearly celebrities did well, writers seemed
to fare badly. Indeed, there were no searches at all for such modern
masters as Malcolm Lowry, Martin Amis and Lee Gomes.
Data aside, reading these queries is like listening in on random phone
calls; even if you don't know who is talking, the experience can be
wrenching.
Consider the person who, over the course of a few minutes, searched for
"What to do when your Christian husband turns away from God," "How to
deal with mental abuse in a Christian marriage" and "Do I stay or go
when a Christian husband is on drugs and alcohol."
One of the recommended sites gave thoughtful answers to important life
questions from an evangelical Christian perspective. The other hawked
Bible books.
Write to Lee Gomes at lee.gomes@wsj.com
Copyright 2006 Wall Street Journal
NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or)
http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html
For more headlines and news please go to:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html
Lee Gomes (wsj@telecom-digest.org)