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The Demographics of Web Search

Posted by kdawson on from the do-what-i-mean dept.

adaviel sends a link to work out of Yahoo Research indicating that demographics can help Web searches; e.g. a women searching for "wagner" probably wants the 18th-century German composer, while for men in the US "wagner" is a paint sprayer. The Yahoo researchers claim that by taking user demographics into account, "they managed to get the chosen link to appear as the top-ranked result 7 per cent more often than in the standard Yahoo search." New Scientist mentions this research and two other innovative adjuncts to current search practice: following the mouse cursor as a proxy for eye tracking, and taking back bearings on online criminals by studying the searches they make. (The latter raises disburbing privacy questions: would you want Google trolling through your search data? How about governments?)

3 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. ROI at 7 Percent by Sully2161 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't disagree with the general principle, but I have to wonder if 7 percent is worth the time, effort, and privacy issues involved. Also, note that the 7% is of a specific 30% subset; the actual value for all queries is 1.5%. I then have to ask how many of those 'upgraded' top-ranked results were already near the top (i.e. in the top 10/first page of results). I feel that the whole idea is getting less fruitful by the second... - S

  2. Re:Sexist search engines by Krahar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We already don't know how Google works. If you want to tell someone about something, you can give them a link, or you can log out of your Google account if you are doing this on Google and this comes in the way. This technique allows to give people the link they are looking for more often than if it isn't in use, and that's exactly what a search engine is about. I'm sure you can opt out and most people using search engines aren't as knowledgeable about what they are doing as you might be.

  3. Wanger *was* an 18th-century composer by geckoFeet · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That would probably be Georg Gottfried Wagner (1698-1756), who also played violin for Bach (1685-1750), another 18th-century composer, and not to be confused with Leonhard Emil Bach (1849-1902), a 19th-century composer.

    Either that or KDawson thinks that "18 century" means "1800s."

    (I am a musicologist, but I am not your musicologist, and this post is not intended as musicological advice).