Most Americans spend more time looking for services online today than they did five years ago, and they’re frustrated, according to a new survey.
Why we care Search engines are supposed to help people find the information they want or need. This survey indicates that poor search engine results and experiences can fail to help users complete tasks, frustrating them.
Search Engine Frustration. Respondents were asked what part of the online service search process they found most frustrating. The first three:
Browsing the search results: 26%
Find the right search term: 22%
By visiting various websites: 21%
More research. Most respondents said they were looking at more search results compared to five years ago:
Month: 54% (19% “a lot more”; 35% “a little more”).
Less: 27% (19% “a little less”; 8% “much less”).
About the same: 20%
Most respondents also said they spend more time searching when looking for services online:
More time: 51% (16% “a lot more”; 35% “a little more”).
Less time: 28% (18% “a little less”; 10% “much less”).
About the same time: 21%
Low PPC ad relevance. Only 12% of respondents said search ads were relevant to them. Yes, PPC ads barely beat radio by 10% in this survey.
More respondents said they find ads more relevant on six other channels: TV (41%), YouTube (37%), Facebook (32%), Instagram (32%), TikTok (19%) and websites (18%) .
What else. In SERPs, 35% of respondents said they skip (I guess scroll) ads to go to (organic) website results. Too:
33% look for sources/companies they recognize by name (hello, brand recognition). 33% look for results with higher star ratings.
Less surprising. Other findings to highlight:
30% of respondents believe that services that appear higher in search results tend to be more relevant. 46% of respondents said that having “credible” results would make the search experience more enjoyable. 86% of respondents believe they can almost always, or more often, tell the difference between organic and paid results. 47% believe it is easier to distinguish between organic and paid results; 37% think it is more difficult; 16% believe that it is no different compared to five years ago.
But. It’s also entirely possible that some, or many, of the respondents aren’t the most tech-savvy.
About the data. The survey of 1,000 US adults was designed to ensure national representation in terms of gender, age and region. It was conducted in late February by Dynata, an independent market research firm, on behalf of Scorpion, which provides technology and services for local businesses.
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