February 18, 2010

Search Query Getting Shorter

Explain This: One-Word Searches Up 17% in 2009, Matt McGee, Small Business Search Marketing (Feb 14)

For years, statistics have shown that searchers are gradually using more words in a query. Suddenly Hitwise produces figures that show the opposite.

"According to their user tracking, one-word searches jumped by 17% in 2009, while longer searches were generally down."

Why - search suggestions? or more use of broad one-word queries because the search engines are getting better at guessing intent?

Posted by Gwen at February 18, 2010 02:50 PM