November 22, 2005 | Tuesday
Search use still surging
By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in News |Search Research
No surprises for Latitude in this search usage research from Pew and ComScore, which confirms what we and our clients know about the value of search. The numbers are worth keeping in mind:
Forty-one percent of 1,577 Internet users surveyed by Pew in September and October reported that they had visited a search engine the previous day. When Pew conducted a similar survey in June of 2004, just 30 percent of Web users said the same. In fact, the only Web activity more popular than searching was using e-mail; about 52 percent of U.S. Web users told Pew researchers they had sent or received e-mail on the day before being surveyed this fall.
The demographics breakdown of search users that the report reveals is also interesting:
Fifty-one percent of Web-using Gen-Xers bewteen the ages of 29 and 40 used a search engine on a typical day, compared to 42 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 28, 39 percent of Internet users between the ages of 51 and 59, and 37 percent of those between 41 and 49.
Search use also seems to correspond with affluence. On a typical day, 52 percent of Web users in households earning at least $75,000 used search engines, compared to just 29 percent of those with household incomes of less than $30,000.
This research originates in the US, but the patterns are seen in the UK as well, especially now with broadband penetration at an all-time peak.
Link via John Battelle’s Searchblog
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