Query generation and seek behaviour – how do average users search the net

Abstract

Search engines especially Google cover more and more influence about how information is found all over the Internet. Some studies investigated the searching of Web users by analysing huge search logs of search engines. Others studied smaller educated groups. This working paper investigates a small group of people of average skill at various age which represent the everyday people. It analyses their query generation and behaviour while searching. Participants searched for 10 issues logging all queries, search engines, website visits and auto-completion that have been used. Results show that 100% use Google. 26% of the queries were generated using auto-completion and 1.83 websites were viewed in average per search. Slightly differences between genders were monitored. Google knows how people search and Web users trust in Google is very high. This is both good and bad.