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Survey Says Internet Users Confuse Search Results, Ads
irishdaze writes "ABC News is reporting that
apparently only 18% of adult web searchers can tell the difference between
actual search results and advertisements. In addition to this astounding conclusion, the Pew Internet and American Life Project's
survey
of 2,200 adults (only 1,399 of which are actual internet users, mind you) also
indicates that 92% of web searchers feel they are confident in their own
searching abilities."
92% of web searchers
Dude, relax. They are saying they interviewed 2200 adults. A certain percentage of those reported they were web searchers (probably somewhere near that 1399 number you quoted). Then, of that number, 90% of THEM feel confident in their own searching abilities.
In other words, nothing to see here, move along. Still, it's more fun to blame Pew than your own analytical skills.
that sounds like a very small chunk of adults to perform such a study on.
Sad that you actually had to explain that. Depressing that this is the sort of thing that makes it onto the front page. I feel like I'm watching one of those shittacular closed-circuit news shows produced by high schoolers, for highschoolers.
--LordPixie
I keep hearing it quoted that 80% of people think they're above-average drivers, too. People who are complete idiots never seem to realise how bad they are at things.
"When I do the math, 92% of 2200 is 2024. This means that Pew/Internet is saying that more people are confident with their web searching skills than actually use the Internet. Saying that something is wrong here just doesn't cover it."
The article says "92% of web searchers" not 92% of the respondents. Only 1399 respondents used the internet, and it is possible that some of those don't do web searches. The submitter of this article is an idiot.
"A good conspiracy is an unprovable one." -Conspiracy Theory
Apparently Google's clear spelling out of "Sponsored Links" is not clear enough for some id10+s...
Given such a win for the seller and the SEC, there will be little motivation to fix this problem of confusion.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
More interesting is the fact that search engines can't tell the difference between commercial sites and informative sites. When I search for something I rarely want to hear the manufacturers spiel on that product, I want real first person accounts. Search engines seem to have no idea of the difference between a review and and advertisement. It can't be that hard. Search for a hard drive review. 90% of the search results have the exact same text (all stores which are selling the product), very few results come bac that objectively review the product. The sites that do objectively review the product don't say the exact same thing that the manufacturer says. hello Google?
"brxref
Do surveys ever reveal anything else?
The finding shows that 44% of web searchers (ahem) use only one search engine. That's amazing in and of itself and probably brings tears of joy to the current market leaders (read: Google). It looks like it's going to take some more intense search engine advertising (a la Yahoo!'s old TV campaign) to get people to consider trying something new.
Has it ever occured that due to information overload on the Internet that people now speed read just about everything they see? I do, and had to re-read your comment again just to to see the second 'to'. ;)
"I think it says the average person, is an idiot."
Yes-indeedee, you are correct. Hopefully, with the proliferation of braindead, thought-numbing programming like "Survivor," "Who's My Daddy," and "The Bachelorette," more marginal cases will slide down the tube that precludes them from ever having to think critically, thus freeing up salary and promotion space for the rest of us.
>;-)
This is also a "phone survey". Asking someone whether or not they know the difference is not the same as them knowing the difference.
I advertise my consulting business using Adwords, and many of my clients have no idea that they clicked on a paid advertisement to get to me. I know this because I always ask how they found me. I've even had several inquire how I got my website ranked so highly on google... when I tell them that it's not, that they clicked on a paid ad, they often tell me I'm wrong! I had a client last week that *insisted* my site was in the free results, which I know is not the case for the keywords she claimed she used.
Why is this a problem? People search for information and they get links about companies which provide products and/or services which may help them. They may also get general inforamtion in the free results. Now, ideally, the ads should be worded such to make them clearly commerce-related, and they are different enough that someone who knows the difference can spot them. But from a user's perspective, what's the difference? Iether way, they are finding what they are looking for (hopefully).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
You are assuming that the people doing the promoting will themselves be smart enough to spot the people worth promoting.
Simple question. Why block these ads? Are you offended by the very idea of advertising? They've created the least annoying and most relevant form of advertising the web has seen. If you can accept any advertising at all, surely this is it.
I block ads that are annoying and/or misleading[1], but leave the rest alone. I guess if you find it difficult to distinguish between an ad and an actual search result then you might feel that these are misleading ads, but I've never had this problem with Google (or maybe I'm in the 82% that don't know the difference).
[1] Actually, I usually block advertisers that use these tactics. Blocking individual ads is too time-consuming and not effective enough.
I actually read a study that said 80% believe they are in the top 5% of drivers. I'm convinced that the actual top 5% are not in that 80%. What I mean is that one of the major components of being a good driver is thinking that you are a not so good driver, and KNOWING that everyone around you is just as bad.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
more marginal cases will slide down the tube that precludes them from ever having to think critically, thus freeing up salary and promotion space for the rest of us
Unfortunately, nepotism turns a blind eye to ability. There will always be braindead idiots in high-ranking places, as long as they have family and friends in high-ranking places.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Hopefully, with the proliferation of braindead, thought-numbing programming like "Survivor," "Who's My Daddy," and "The Bachelorette," more marginal cases will slide down the tube that precludes them from ever having to think critically, thus freeing up salary and promotion space for the rest of us.
The problem is that there are more of those kinds of people, and they will gradually take more and more of your earnings away through taxes to cover social programs for themselves.
Ph34r the tyranny of the [dumb] majority.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
For one thing, most people have a very hard time talking about the elements of computer interfaces. As someone who works on web interface development for clients, time and time again people will look at a comp, then when discussing the comp from memory will miss vital aspects of the comp or have a difficult time describing which elements of the comp they want altered and why.
This is a case where observed use would provide much better insight into how people interact with paid search ads. It's like the difference between focus group recommendations and usability testing results. Almost always there are differences between what people say they want when you're talking about it on the phone and what they actually want when they're sitting in front of a computer.
Also, I find it annoying that they didn't break the results out by engine. Not all paid advertising is set aside in the same fashion, and my guess is that results would vary by engine. The Pew folks likely have their reasons for keeping the results aggregated, but it also makes the information less valuable, because it doesn't reveal what specific aspects of advertiser identification work and which don't.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Actually, black-and-white monitors are now prohibitively expensive, due to lack of demand. This is unfortunate for two reasons. First, monochrome monitors don't suffer from colour fringing from dot beating or misconvergence. Second, if common video cards supported greyscale displays, we could have, roughly speaking, better resolution by a factor of sqrt(3) for the same price. In return for sharp 200dpi text I'd gladly leave behind cartoonish GUI "features" and even make do with greyscale pr0ns.
echo 33676832766569823265328479713269.8639857989Pq | dc
I'd agree with this and take it a step further. Many users don't separate the concepts of computer and internet. They say things like "I had my web open" or "I closed my internet," when they mean they closed their IE window. So they don't make a distinction between the internet as a resource and the application used to access it. Thusly most users don't think they have another option to access the web. I would posit that this is where many virus problems come from. Users think they're safe from viruses and malware if the "internet is closed,' meaning they don't have a browser window opened. Problem is, the computer is still connected to the internet and they're still using IE to view web pages. How does one re-educate the using public about the relationship between computer, user and internet? In one sense, they should think of them as closely related and users are increasingly being encouraged to think of it all as one experience. In another sense, users should be aware of the internet as a vast library of information with many different ways of accessing it. Think average Joe users know about or would understand an RSS reader now that the IE experience is indelibly linked to the idea of "my internet?" I think not.