JIM RAPOZA
Rev your search engines
It’s not that hard to improve site search, yet many businesses still don’t
Nowadays, businesses report, “Site Search: Building The report also looked
spend a lot of time the Ultimate Results Page,” at the use of multimedia
thinking about search looks at how sites implement and rich Web interfaces to
and a lot of money try- search and how different types improve the capabilities and
ing to come up with of users take advantage of site reach of search results.
ways to improve how search to find Web content. I find it strange that, despite
their Web sites relate to search. While there was little in the the ease with which site search
But for many businesses, report that was new, it makes can be improved, many busi-
this takes the form of an clear the importance of taking nesses still don’t do it.
almost exclusive focus on the time to build a site search My recommendations are:
improving their visibility to engine that helps users find Use your site search engine’s
Google and boosting their site content on your site and keep tools to devise ways to improve
ranking through various search them there and coming back, its capabilities; look for com-
engine optimization tech- rather than giving a poor site- mon search terms and build
niques. And while SEO can
be effective, it is also in many
ways a black art, with even the
best SEO practitioners feeling If you have trouble finding
that they have little control over your own content, visitors
the changes and whims in will find it near impossible.
search that Google enacts.
The funny thing is that
there is an area of search that
these businesses have much search experience that leaves custom results to make these
greater control over, but that visitors frustrated and disin- more effective; and ensure
they pay much less attention clined to return. common misspellings still
to or even ignore outright. For its report, Jupiter- return the results people want.
And this is the search capabil- Research surveyed users that it Most importantly, ensure
ities of their own Web sites. broke into four groups: super- it works. If you have a hard
When it comes to how users Net veterans, Net veterans, time finding content that
find information and content intermediate users and nov- you know exists using your
on a site, a well-implemented ices. The survey found novice search engine, visitors will
search engine can pay real users more likely to rely on site find it near impossible.
dividends in helping users find search than advanced users. And if your visitors can’t
what they are looking for. But, Also, novices were more likely find what they are looking
strangely, many proprietors of to take advantage of search aids for, then they have no reason
Web sites seem to ignore their such as most popular results to come back to your site.
own search capabilities, doing while veterans were more likely
little in the way of internal to use advanced search and Chief Technology Analyst Jim
search optimization. sorting options when using site Rapoza can be reached at
JupiterResearch’s recent search. jrapoza@eweek.com.
