When is Too Much, Too Much
An interesting article appeared in The Telegraph newspaper, a few days ago, about why having too much choice can leave us bewildered and depressed. The article relates to research carried out at Stanford University and can be used broadly across every instance we meet in our day-to-day lives and that includes using search engines.
To quote a piece from the aforementioned article..
People can become paralysed by too much variety and wracked with uncertainty and regret about whether they have made the right decision.
I tend to think, just how do people navigate a Google search result page, nowadays. I see a muddy mess, sometimes, when a certain search query is run. For instance I could get all the following types of results shown on a Google results page against my search query:
- Google Sponsored Links (top and right of the page)
- Google News Listings
- Google Local Business Listings
- Google Live Search Feed
- Google Shopping Listings
- Google Image Results
- Google Organic Listings (normally a maximum of 10)
- Google Blog Listings
- Google Video Listings
- Google Related Search Listings
Have I missed anything? Err, what about the kitchen sink from Google’s cafeteria, why not throw that in as well.
Now, if you think I’m being pedantic, let’s run a search query and see what a typical user might be up against.
Google Sponsored Listings
Google News Listings
Google Organic Listings
Google Live Search & Google Shopping Results
More Organic Listings
Even More Organic and Google Search Related Results
It’s a bit of a pic n’ mix. Don’t get me wrong, I like Google having these Eureka moments – I just wish there was a better structure to the layout in which they displayed on the page.
So, what’s your thoughts. Have Google got it right! Does their Universal buffet of search variety agree with you or are you frustrated by too much choice and yearn for the days when search result pages were easier to navigate and you got what you wanted quicker. I’d love to hear your comments.
I’d agree that amongst the clutter of the search results, it often takes a few moments to actually break down the results before clicking.
It’s also frustrating when results like news, live news, products results move up and down all the time for various searched.
Again, I like the idea of having all results in one, just thing if you show results you should keep to a consistent format.
Shahid
Hi Shahid, thanks for your comment. Agreed, the format is made even more unclear because of the constant shifting of the various types of results shown. If we, people who monitor the search pages more than your average user, are thrown off-center for a moment to consume what we have before us – then think what the average user has to go through.
to me universal search is starting to provide too much information to consumers to be of use. The ’sposed natural space is diluted with so much stuff that it mitigates against users being able to locate useful information.
1. I rarely click a news results
2. Occasionally click an image result
3. Find real time search to be an aggravating factor in my user experience (the movement is really distracting me from achieving my online goals)
4. YouTube etc gets my goat
That said if I wanted to maximise the CTR on paid ads – esp in high click value areas adding these to ensure that more website owners bid more so that they sit above all the noise I’d keep placing these things in. It does however separate the men from the boys in the SEO marketplace
No longer is front page of any use, even above the fold is of less use and clients are demanding top three positions on ‘core’ keywords to increase market share. And using techniques such as Title tag and meta tag sculpting to enhance CTR from natural is growing more important. Maybe its a good thing after all. Focussing the minds of SEO folksies not on positions but on the value to a clients business of positions.
Of course, it’s all about the AdWords Mike, but that aside, you touched on 2 important words .. user experience .. which i feel is being let down by too much choice.
UX is generally something that Google has historically been very good at – take the homepage for example. Allowing users to achieve their goals is something they’ve generally paid a huge amount of attention to. Generally universal search distracts from this.
I am saying this as an individual who’s life is focussed hugely on using and monitoring Google. It may be that the user experience for an average user is different and their perspective is that all the additional components allows them to conduct their searches more effectively.
I guess all of us who do online marketing probably have a slightly skewed perspective as a result of this kind of issue – am sure that Google monitor the usage of the universal search components to maximize the value that they return to their users – at least I would like to think that they do…
Maybe I give them too much credit.
http://www.mercurythread.co.uk/
Hey Mike,
Too much credit, maybe, but I would add with the shifting of the universal landscape, I’d assume google test many many variances of the output and personalise based on login etc to a certain degree….
As a user, irrelevant of how much I visit a site, I always like to know whats new in the serps and sometimes hate the fact that google personalises my results….often am having to search on a browser whilst being logged out or use unpersonalised search plugin in the toolbar to ensure I am getting the same results like an average user. (I know localisation will play a part in the results
)
Shahid
http://www.wristwatches.co.uk