Friday, July 04, 2003

Google Changes Everything

Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster "In the last few years, Google has reversed this equation by emphasizing quality in its sorting of search results. It is now extremely easy for users to find other good sites.

Information foraging predicts that the easier it is to find good patches, the quicker users will leave a patch. Thus, the better search engines get at highlighting quality sites, the less time users will spend on any one site."

"The patch-leaving model thus predicts that visits will become ever shorter. Google and always-on connections have changed the most fruitful design strategy to one with three components:

* Support short visits; be a snack
* Encourage users to return; use mechanisms such as newsletters as a reminder
* Emphasize search engine visibility and other ways of increasing frequent visits by addressing users' immediate needs"

No comments: