Search Engine Performance: Is OK Good Enough?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Monday, August 13, 2007

(Source) I think that many major companies, including the search engines, have fallen victim to this issue. But because consumers think that the engines are doing a good job (heck, a better job than HOSPITALS!), there’s no demand for the engines to provide more relevant results. Do SEMs think the engines could do a better job? I think most do. But it doesn’t matter what we think — it matters what the consumers — the users — think and how they react to the engines. Until then, OK will likely be good enough.

This is something I haven’t considered before. If the average searcher thinks search engines are doing a good enough job then we may never get better results from the search engines. But is the average searcher qualified to make that judgment?

Think about how many searches you make each day. Is it 5? 10? 30? Or 1?

I believe most people - the average searcher - only makes 1 or 2 searches a day, and that not even every day. But the average search engine marketer and search engine optimizer makes far more searches per day than the average searcher. People in the industry make no less than 10 searches per day every single day.

I have no statistics or study to back that up. But I believe it is a good guess. Only there is more of us than there are of them (SEMs and SEOs vs. average searchers). Not that this is an us vs. them game. It isn’t. But I would hope that search engines have the sense to put more stock in the opinions of those who use their services most often.

Imagine it this way: You drive automobiles, right? I’m sure you do. What if GM or Ford took a survey of automobile users and asked them “Are you satisfied with the total performance of all the automobiles you drive?” Well, there are many factors that affect automobile performance, some of them you probably can’t explain unless you are involved the manufacturing of automobiles or the maintenance of them. But the surveyor asks you the question and you say, “Sure, I’m happy with the performance I get from my 2007 Taurus.” It gets you to work everyday, right?

Well, let’s continue with our analogy. Your next door neighbor is an auto mechanic. He drives lots of cars, right. Every time a customer brings in a vehicle for him to work on he has to drive it around the block to - what? - check it’s performance. Do you think he’ll have a different perspective? I’m sure he will.

Now, the average automobile user is probably happy with the overall performance of the car or truck they drive to and from work every day. On average, they may crawl behind the steering wheel of their vehicles two or three times a day. But an auto mechanic likely gets behind the wheel of a vehicle more often than that. If he works on 10 cars a day and he drives each one around the block then he uses automobiles 3 or 4 times as often as the average driver.

This isn’t a perfect analogy, I know. But I do believe it has some validity. The number of times you use a product gives you more chances to evaluate it on the criteria that are important to its performance. That’s why I think search engines should seek out the feedback from SEOs and SEMs who work with their services multiple times daily versus the average searcher who only uses the services once a day. It makes sense to me. What about you?

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