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January 13, 2005
PRESS RELEASE
Yahoo! Search and MSN Search Close the Gap
with Google, Says Keynote
- Google Maintains Search Industry Leadership,
Yahoo! and MSN Improve Considerably
- Keynote Study
Examines User Experience at Leading Search Engines
SAN MATEO, Calif., — January 13, 2005 — The
Yahoo! and MSN search engines are closing the gap with
Google by improving the search experience for consumers
and that will lead to increased usage for those sites,
according to a new study. The syndicated research study
conducted by Keynote Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”),
The Internet Performance Authority®, provides the
industry’s most comprehensive competitive benchmarking
of customer attitudes and experience at leading search
engine sites.
The Keynote Customer Experience (CE) Rankings for
the Search Engine Industry are based on research with
2,000 consumers as they interacted with leading search
engines. In addition to traditional opinion data, Keynote’s
proprietary research technology collects detailed qualitative
and behavioral data as users perform tasks at each
site.
Google Leads, Yahoo! and MSN Close the Gap
“Google is the king of customer experience in
the search engine industry, but Yahoo!, MSN and Ask
Jeeves are improving,” said
Dr. Bonny Brown, director of research and public services
for Keynote. “Given the open nature of the Web,
as these sites continue to improve the user experience
they will undoubtedly begin to attract more users and
improve user loyalty. Obviously this will impact the
advertising side of the business.”
According to the study, Google maintains its clear
leadership position in the search industry, again leading
the Keynote Customer Experience Rankings. Sites topping
the Keynote CE Rankings perform best, in aggregate,
across all 250+ metrics and indices measured during
the study, including those for brand impact, future
usage, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
| Keynote Customer Experience
Rankings |
| 1. |
Google |
| 2. |
Yahoo! |
| 3. |
MSN |
| 4. |
Ask Jeeves |
| 5. |
Lycos |
However, Yahoo! and
MSN have made significant gains against Google since
the last Keynote search engine study, published in
May 2004. Yahoo!, which remains in second place across
the Keynote CE Rankings and other leading indicators,
launched an expanded local search service and a new
search results page after the last study and, as a
result, significantly improved its overall user experience.
The quality of local search results is a major frustration
to many search engine users. Across all search sites,
almost one in four (22%) users complain that the local
results are not what they are looking for or are not
ranked appropriately. Yahoo! showed significant improvement
in the ranking of the quality of its local search results,
tying Google in leading the industry in this key category.
MSN, which remains in third place overall, began separating
sponsored results from its Web search results in July
2004 and, as a consequence, also showed a significant
improvement in overall user experience. The company
is expected to release a new version of the MSN search
site in early 2005, and that site will be evaluated
in the next Keynote study in June 2005.
The perceived usefulness of sponsored results is one
of the top five drivers impacting user experience,
and MSN showed a significant increase in this category
since the last study. More than 47% of MSN users described
the site’s sponsored results as very useful in
the most recent study, as compared to just 37% doing
so prior to the change.
Ask Jeeves also showed a significant increase in its
overall customer experience in large part driven by
a significant improvement in its local search.
Yahoo!, MSN Jump in Future Usage Index
As a direct result of their improvements in user experience,
Yahoo!, MSN and Ask Jeeves also saw a notable increase
in their standing in the Keynote Future Usage Index,
which measures the likelihood of consumers to use
a search site as their primary search tool and to
return to the site in the future. The index also
measures a user’s likelihood to recommend a
search site to others or to use a search toolbar
offered by the site. Google maintained its position
as the leader in the Future Usage Index, but did
not improve its overall standing.
Since the last study, Yahoo! has boosted the number
of users who said they would consider the site as their
primary search engine by more than 20% and MSN by almost
30%. More than 81% of Yahoo! users and 61% of MSN users
said they would return to those sites in the future,
as compared to just 72% of Yahoo! users and 55% of
MSN users stating so in the previous Keynote study.
“Over the past year, the major search engines
have made great strides to improve their services,
and users have noticed,” said Chris Sherman,
Editor, Search Engine Watch. “However, loyalty
is fragmented, and alternatives are just a mouse click
away. It's becoming increasingly crucial for search
engines not just to attract users but to build loyalty – and
the only way to do that is by improving the overall
quality of the user experience.”
Even though 75% of users say they have one primary
search engine, when search expectations are not met
up to 50% of users will turn to another search engine
as an alternative. Additionally, up to 20% of users
regularly use different search engines for different
types of searches. As a result, all the leading sites
get fairly extensive exposure.
MSN Separation of Sponsored, Web Results Pays Off
The perceived quality of search results is the leading factor influencing user
satisfaction, and MSN was the only site to make significant gains in this category.
Google and Yahoo! continue to lead the industry in terms of user perceptions
about the quality of search results.
Keynote studies, which measure both user perceptions
and actual search results, have revealed that search
engine success is based in large part on the presentation
of search results and brand affinity. Sites that users
rank well in terms of presentation and brand, also
rank well in perceived quality and success of search.
Keynote has found that actual search results returned
by the leading five search engines, when measured objectively,
do not differ significantly. In fact, Lycos, Ask Jeeves
and MSN perform as well as Google and Yahoo! when actual
user success in conducting complex searches was measured.
“MSN’s recent separation of sponsored
results from actual Web results greatly improved user
perceptions of MSN search results,” said Brown. “This
move has increased the loyalty of MSN users and improved
perceptions of advertising and sponsored results on
the MSN site.”
Piper Jaffray predicts the search engine industry
will generate $8.9 billion in revenues by 2007, up
from $2.6 billion in 2003.
The entire report, Keynote Customer Experience (CE)
Rankings for the Search Engine Industry, is a 100+
page examination of the search engine industry containing
hundreds of additional data points and a detailed analysis
of the findings. For information about purchasing the
full report, visit http://www.keynote.com/syndicated.html.
Keynote Customer Experience Research
Keynote is the leading provider of customer experience
research services, offering both syndicated and custom
research examining consumer attitudes and behavior
on the Web. Keynote’s research provides critical
business insight into online customer experiences,
industry trends and competitive Web strategies for
a variety of vertical industries. In addition to
traditional opinion data, Keynote’s proprietary
research technology and access to a panel of 160,000+
consumers allows for the collection of detailed qualitative
and behavioral data that inform its reports.
Keynote’s syndicated research includes two distinct
types of reports: the Keynote Customer Experience (CE)
Rankings, which provide competitive benchmarking and
rankings of the leading Web sites in a specific industry;
and Open Web Research (OWR), which takes a broader
look at the customer’s experience across the
entire Web when performing specific tasks, such as
booking business travel.
Keynote CE (CE) Rankings are available for a number
of industries including the retail, banking and credit
card industries, as well as several travel verticals,
including the lodging, cruise and rental car industries.
The Keynote CE Rankings are the successor to the Vividence
CE Rankings following Keynote’s acquisition of
Vividence in September 2004.
To learn more about Keynote’s syndicated research
offerings and for a list of the various vertical industry
reports that are available, visit: http://www.keynote.com/solutions/cem_syndicated_research.html.
About Keynote
Founded in 1995, Keynote Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”),
The Internet Performance Authority®, is the worldwide
leader in e-business performance management services.
Over 2,100 corporate IT departments and 20,000 individual
subscribers rely on Keynote’s growing range of
measurement and monitoring, service level and customer
experience management services to improve e-business
performance by reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction
and increasing profitability.
Keynote is viewed as The Internet Performance Authority
due to the company’s global infrastructure of
over 1,600 measurement computers in more than 50 cities
worldwide that capture and store on a daily basis over
60 million Internet performance measurements, frequent
media citations quoting Keynote's Web performance data
and analysis, the company’s market-leading Web
performance indices for vertical markets and leading
customer research that provides critical business insight
into online customer experiences, industry trends and
competitive Web strategies.
Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo,
California and can be reached at www.keynote.com or
by phone in the U.S. at 650-403-2400.
Keynote, The Internet Performance Authority and Perspective
are registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc.
Other trademarks are the property of their respective
owners.
©
2005 Keynote Systems, Inc. Public Relations Contacts:
Dan Berkowitz, Keynote Systems, Inc., (650)
403-3305, dberkowitz@keynote.com
Dan Cahill, Roaring PR (for Keynote), (415)
552-3999, dcahill@roaringcommunications.com
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