The debate on Google's search success rate

March 2011 - Although Google still reigns as the number one search engine in the US, there's been much to-do about the claims recently made by Experian Hitwise. In an article published in Computerworld, Hitwise metrics concluded that Google's search market share dropped in February while Yahoo/Bing's market share increased. Was it enormous? Two tenths of a percent, nothing earth shattering. But that's not what the uproar is about. Computerworld also reported that Bing is providing users with more accurate search results compared to the longtime reigning king of search. Now that's a spark for debate.

According to Computerworld, more than 81% of the searches done on Bing or Bing-powered Yahoo lead users to visit a Web site, which Hitwise deems a "successful search." In comparison, the article claimed that Google wasn't as successful as Bing in January, noting only a 65% success rate.

Just what is Hitwise's definition of success rate? Google's Matt Cutts weighed in on his blog stating that he's been skeptical about Hitwise's "search success rate" metric since 2009, saying, "There's a difference between an abandoned search and clicking on a search result, but both result in the user searching and then going to a different site. By Hitwise's definition, wouldn't doing a query on Bing and then going to Google or Yahoo count as a 'successful search' on Bing? I'm also assuming that you can't measure if the user got the information that they needed from the search results without needing to click to another site."

Matt goes on to state that Hitwise later confirmed that they really don't know whether the user actually clicked on a search result or went to a completely unrelated site. His blog posting was far more than a rebuttal on Google's behalf, it posed simple logic. How can an unproven metric continue to be used at all, let alone to make unjustified claims? It sure would be nice to see Computerworld do a follow up article on that topic.