A Penn State research study has found that 80% of web searches are informational, 10% navigational and 10% transactional. Informational searches are defined as those toward finding a particular fact, navigational searches are toward finding particular sources, and transactional searches toward buying a product or service. The findings have a 74% accuracy rate.
So what does this say that we don’t already know about how, rather than why people search the internet? Google is the new authority, and whatever it suggests is *most relevant* are what concern users most. Traditional authorities (i.e. reference tools like Encyclopaedia Britannica and media groups) are all very much playing second fiddle to aggregators and search engines. Albeit, those networks of trust established by Google’s link relevancy surely still contains those elements of trust we all have in traditional sources.
So not a great deal I think!
