RESEARCH METHODOLOGY PROJECT

Is

the most visited search engine?

Is Google the most visited search engine?

Submitted By: Hemangi Bhogwal Prachi Karnik Savita Kundu Jyoti Pokhare Hemal Shah P-03 P-15 P-18 P-28 P-33

For the course of MMS I (Semester II)

Submitted To: Miss. Gitanjali Kapoor Date: 07-03-09

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We take this opportunity to thank our respected madam, Miss Gitanjali Kapoor for her valuable guidance, continuous inspiration and encouragement during the course of our project. We owe our work and successful completion of this report to her. We also thank Mrs. Saroj Mishra for her valuable Guidance and support during the entire work. We sincerely thank our library for availing the Excellent Knowledge database, text material. We would also like to thanks our IT Dept. for providing the IT facility whenever required. We thank our colleagues of Parashar batch who helped us filling the Questionnaire and provided the moral support throughout the work for the successful completion of this study.

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that group 8 (P-3, P-15, P-18, P-28, P33) has duly completed its project for the degree of Masters in Management Studies (Semester-II) for the year 2009-2010, under the guidance of Miss. Gitanjali Kapoor. We further certify that entire work has been carried out by the students in Dr. V.N.BRIMS College and no part of it had been submitted to any degree before.

Miss. Gitanjali Kapoor Project Guide Dr. V.N.BRIMS college of Management studies.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Sr. No.

Contents

Page No.

1.

Abstract

2.

Introduction

3.

Methods

4.

Discussion

5.

Result

10

6.

Conclusion

10

7.

Appendix

18

8.

Bibliography & Webliography

19

ABSTRACT
The research topic is Is Google the most visited search engine. The study is conducted on a sample of 50 people. Comparison is being done between five search engines that are Google, Yahoo!, Ask, Live search, MSN search. The result are being analyzed with the help of statistical method that is Chi-Square test and 80% of the people preferred Google over the other search engines like Yahoo!, Ask, Live search, MSN search. It is found from the result that Google is the most visited search engine.

INTRODUCTION
Search engines have forever changed the way people access and discover knowledge, allowing information about almost any subject to be quickly and easily retrieved within seconds. This presents the problem of how to find what information is contained in each search engine, what bias a search engine may have, and how to select the best search engine for a particular information need. Google search is a Web search engine owned by Google Inc. and is the most used search engine on the Web. Google receives several hundred million queries each day through its various services. Google is now the most dominant search tool on the web. Founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google not only indexes and caches web pages but also takes "snapshots" of other file types, which include PDF, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Flash SWF, plain text files, online videos such as YouTube and much more. Since Google is the most popular search engine, many webmasters have become eager to influence their website's Google rankings. An industry of consultants has arisen to help websites increase their rankings on Google and on other search engines. This field, called search engine optimization, attempts to discern patterns in search engine listings, and then develop a methodology for improving rankings.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Search Engines

Jan 09

Dec 08

Google Yahoo! MSN Live Ask

81.48% 10.22% 2.95% 1.67% 0.12%

81.26% 10.43% 2.96% 1.59% 0.96%

The above table shows the market share of various search engines in Jan 09 and Dec 08. In both the year Google is the leader among all others with a market share of 81.48% & 81.26% respectively.

PURPOSE OF RESEARCH
The study is conducted with following 2 main objectives: 1. To test whether Google is the most visited search engine or not. 2. To find out the reason for the success of a search engine over the others.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Several researches are being already conducted regarding the usage of search engines. The reasons for study are to find the market share, some to find the best search tool and some to find the search engine traffic. Essentially, all this research tells a similar story: higher search engine results generally means an increase in click through rates. Research undertaken by iProspect (2008) showed that around 70% of searchers click on a result in the first page of search results, the Enquisite (2008) found that it was 90%. The result of an eye tracking study of Google conducted by Enquiro in 2005 shows that users spend most of their time looking where the colours are hottest - in the red, orange, and yellow sections of the page. It shows that users' eyes are directed to the top search results, this is known as the "golden search triangle". Nielsen//NetRatings also reports the top five search destinations were Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN Search, AOL Search and Ask Jeeves during January 2004. Fifty-nine million users or 39 percent of active Internet users visited Google Search engines continue to be the primary tool people use to navigate the Web, said Jason Levin, analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. With the big search players having recently updated their search capabilities, Internet users should expect to find even better search results from the major search engines in the near future.(Charles Buchwalter, 2004).

Search engine preference

In an attempt to gauge which search engines users preferred respondents were asked which search engine they normally used first. AltaVista scored most highly here with 194 responses. Next popular were Yahoo with 59 responses (15%) and Lycos with 46 responses (12%). Respondents were asked why they chose to use a particular search engine. Most popular were Speed of Access to Information (186 responses) and the amount of information users perceived was stored in the search engine repository (146 responses) (Simon Stobart and Susan Kerridge,Nov,1996)

METHODS
Data Collection method:
1. Primary data - Questionnaire 2. Secondary data - Internet search & Library search Research is conducted on a sample of 50 people. Participants were of different age group, occupation etc.

Demographics:
1. Age group: Three age groups are considered. - Below 18 yrs, 18-30 yrs, Above 30 yrs 2. Occupation: People from different occupations were included that is business, service and students. 3. Location: Survey was conducted on college students, in residential areas and in cyber cafes. 4. Maintain confidentiality: No personal information was asked in the survey form.

Procedure:
Initially a hypothesis was designed accordingly the survey questionnaire was prepared containing open ended and close questions. The questionnaires were distributed among the sample population. All the data collected was tabulated systematically and analyzed with various statistical tools.

DISCUSSION
1. Do you use internet?

The above pie diagram shows the usage of internet. The survey conducted showed almost all the respondents are internet users. 2. For how many hours do you use internet daily?

As per requirement

more than 3 hr Time spent on internet

2 hr

1 hr

0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5

18% people use net for 1 Hr, 16% for 2 Hrs, 16% for more than 3 Hrs and 10

remaining (50%) surf net as per their requirement.

3. Why do you use a search engine?

Just out of habit I like the w eb page Accuracy of data User friendly Speed of access Others

18% people said just out of habit. They like to see the changes daily and check the data just out of habit. 2% users like the web page. They may like the designing and the layout of the web page. 42% of the users the site because of availability of accurate data. They get relevant and perfect data immediately. 54% said they surf the website for being user friendly. The site is easy to surf. 34% users prefer the site because they get the information very fast. 10% users said for other reasons that may include getting new information on different subjects, entertainment, new, etc.

4. Which search engine do you prefer first?

Google Yahoo Ask Live search MSN search

The above pie diagram shows that the first preference of search engine by the people. The result shows that 84% of the respondents have Google as their first preference. 8% have Yahoo.com as their first preference. Those who have 11

Yahoo.com as their 1st preference have also opted for Google as their 2nd preference. 5. How easy it is to find information on Google search engine?

Very Difficult

Difficult

Average

Ease of finding information on Google

Easy

Very Easy

28% people think that its very easy to get information on Google search engine. 44% respondents get information with ease. They don't have to search more. 30% people think that sometimes they get the data easily and sometimes they have to review upto few pages. But no one in the study thinks that it is difficult or very difficult to search information on Google search engine.

6. Is Google your home page?

The above pie diagram represents percentage of respondents having Google as their home page. 52% of the respondents have said that they have Google as their home page whereas, 48% do not have Google as their home page. Google is number 1 in the world now. The main reason is the home page of Google.com is loaded very fast than Yahoo or any other sites. So it is very helpful for searching data quickly. Google also displays direct link to gmail, orkut, etc.

12

The first page contains only links and search box. The page loading is very faster than any other sites. But on Yahoo the page contains lot of pictures, news, links. 7. Rate the following in terms of relevancy of information (1 for most deserving and 5 for least deserving)
0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 Preference

The above bar graph shows the most deserving search engine based on the relevancy of information available on them. In the study conducted 80% of the respondents rated Google as their 1st choice followed by Yahoo, Live search and MSN search with 9% respondents whereas Ask.com got the least rating of 2% respondents. Google is much better than the other engines at determining if a link is a true editorial citation or an artificial link. They have aggressive duplicate content filters that filter out many pages with similar content.

8. How frequently you visit Google search engine?

0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 Frequency of visit to Google

The above graph shows the frequency of visit to Google search engine. 68% visited Google almost daily. 22% says weekly. 4%- monthly, 6%- any other. This result shows that most of the people visit Google regularly for searching the information. 13

From this we can say that Google is one of the most important tool in providing valuable information. 9. For what purpose do you visit Google?
0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 Academics Shopping Videos Entertainment Business New s Below 18 yrs 18 to 30 yrs Above 30 yrs

The above graph shows the purpose of visiting Google search engine. The study shows that individuals below 18yrs of age visit Google for academics and entertainment purpose. Individuals in age group 18-30 surf Google for various purposes like academics, entertainment, news whereas, individuals above 30 yrs of age like to surf the site for news, business, etc. 10. How many results do you typically review on Google (approximately) before clicking one?

Only a few First Page First 2 Pages More than 3 pages

The above pie chart shows the number of pages reviewed on the Google site. Maximum (38%) of respondents said that they review only first page for 14

most of their information search whereas very few (14%) move beyond 2 pages as they find relevant data on the first pages itself. 11. If you do not find what you are looking for (on Google) what do you prefer?

0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 Revise your search Move to another search engine Column 1

74% people normally revise their search if they do not get the required information. The remaining move to another search engines. 12. What is your overall impression of the Google search engine?

0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 Professional Informative Visually Pleasing Below Expectation Meets Expectation Exceeds Expectation

For professional information 6% respondents find Google below expectations whereas 86% think it meets their expectation and remaining says it exceeds expectation. For informative information 62% think it meets their expectation and remaining (38%) says it exceeds expectation. 70% respondents 15

find Google as a visually pleasing.20%- below expectation10%- exceeds expectation. 13. Do you find any Problems with Google? Most of the respondents do not find any problem with Google. Problems encountered by some respondents are:

Irrelevancy of information. Displays vast pool of data which is confusing for the user. Sometimes displays expired links. Problem finding some very specific data. Time consuming.

14. Is Google the best search engine? Justify. Most of the respondents replied Google as the best search engine as compared to others. Some of the reasons given were:

Good speed of Google search. Very informative. Accurate and reliable information. User friendly. Fast as compared to others. Easy to access. Relevant data Valuable information Huge spectrum of information Updates the information regularly Meets the users requirements

16

Convenient

Calculation:
As the given study was conducted to test the goodness of fit, Chi-square test was used as the statistical tool. Measures of goodness of fit typically summarize the discrepancy between observed values and the values expected under the model in question. The obtained results were represented in tabular and graphical form. Ho: Google is not the most visited search engine. H1: Google is the most visited search engine.

Attributes Preference (frequency)

Google 40

Yahoo 3

Ask 1

Livesearch 3

MSN search 3

Sample size = 50 Degree of Freedom = n-1= 5-1= 4 Level of Significance = 5% = 0.05 Critical (table) value of Chi Square = 9.49 Chi square table:

Search Engine Google Yahoo Ask Live Search MSN Search

Observed Frequency Oi 40 3 1 3 3

Expected Frequency Ei 10 10 10 10 10

OiEi

(OiEi)^2

(OiEi)^2/Ei

30 7 9 7 7

900 49 81 49 49

90 4.9 8.1 4.9 4.9

Expected value (Ei) = 50/5 = 10 Chi square , =

= 90+4.9+8.1+4.9+4.9 =112.8 (cal) = 112.8

17

(tab) (4,0.05) = 9.49 (cal) > (tab)

So, Ho is rejected and H1 is accepted. Therefore, it is proved that Google is the most visited search engine.

RESULT:
The research conducted showed the following interesting results: SearchEngines Google Yahoo MSNsearch Livesearch Ask Ranking 1 2 3 4 5 Characteristics Excellent search engine that does wellineverysinglecategory. Anothersearchengineletdownbyits displaycategory. Gettingthere butstillhas awayto go. Surprisinglypoorresults. Let down by its limited search option.

CONCLUSION
Key Findings and Implications of the research
1. Key among the findings relating to the current search engine user community is that 72% of search engine users click on a search result within the first page of results, and a full 86% of search engine users click on a result within the first three pages of search results. This reinforces the need for marketers to ensure that their websites are ranked within the first three pages of search results particularly on the first page for the keywords used by search engine users to find their products, services, or information. 2. In the case where an initial search is unsuccessful, 74% of search engine users will re-launch their search using the same search engine as they used for their initial search, but add more keywords to refine their subsequent search. This finding seems to indicate that a fairly high level of confidence exists on the part of users across search engines in general. This finding also points to the need for marketers to not only target a few short, broad terms with their search engine marketing campaigns, but also an abundance of longer, more specific keyword phrases being queried when users are dissatisfied with the results of their initial

18

searches.

LIMITATIONS:
1. Small sample size. 2. Time consuming 3. Survey was conducted in a small area.

APPENDIX
Age: Total number of respondents- 50

Age group Below 18 yrs 18-30 yrs Above 30 yrs

No. of respondents 13 25 12

Internet users: Yes No 50 0

Internet usage: 1 Hr 2 Hrs More than 3 Hrs As per requirement 9 8 8 25

Reason for using search engine: Just out of habit I like the web page 19 9 1

Accuracy of data User friendly Speed of access Others

21 27 17 7

First preference for search engine: Google.com Yahoo.com Ask.com Live search.com MSN search.com 42 8 0 0 0

Ease of finding information on Google search engine: Very easy Easy Average Difficult Very difficult 14 22 15 0 0

Google as home page: Yes No 26 24

Preference for relevancy of information: Google.com Yahoo.com Ask.com 40 3 1

20

Live search.com MSN search.com

3 3

Frequency of visit to Google search engine: Daily Weekly Monthly Any other 34 11 2 3

Purpose of visit to Google search engine: Academics Shopping Videos Entertainment Business News 34 8 10 27 20 21

Results review on Google: Only a few First page First 2 pages More than 3 pages 17 19 7 7

Option preferred when the required information is not found: Revise your search Move to another search engine 37 13

21

Overall impression of the Google search engine: Below expectation Meets expectation Exceeds expectation Professional Informative Visually pleasing 3 0 10 43 31 35 4 9 5

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WEBLIOGRAPHY

Paneerselvam R., Research Methodology. Dr. Khan Priyotosh, Statistics for Management, Economics and Computer. Pg no.- 16.9 16.29 www.google.com www.iprospect.com

22