TY - GEN
T1 - Brand awareness and the evaluation of search results
AU - Jansen, Bernard J.
AU - Zhang, Mimi
AU - Zhang, Ying
PY - 2007
Y1 - 2007
N2 - We investigate the effect of search engine brand (i.e., the identifying name or logo that distinguishes a product from its competitors) on evaluation of system performance. This research is motivated by the large amount of search traffic directed to a handful of Web search engines, even though most are of equal technical quality with similar interfaces. We conducted a laboratory study with 32 participants to measure the effect of four search engine brands while controlling for the quality of search engine results. There was a 25% difference between the most highly rated search engine and the lowest using average relevance ratings, even though search engine results were identical in both content and presentation. Qualitative analysis suggests branding affects user views of popularity, trust and specialization. We discuss implications for search engine marketing and the design of search engine quality studies.
AB - We investigate the effect of search engine brand (i.e., the identifying name or logo that distinguishes a product from its competitors) on evaluation of system performance. This research is motivated by the large amount of search traffic directed to a handful of Web search engines, even though most are of equal technical quality with similar interfaces. We conducted a laboratory study with 32 participants to measure the effect of four search engine brands while controlling for the quality of search engine results. There was a 25% difference between the most highly rated search engine and the lowest using average relevance ratings, even though search engine results were identical in both content and presentation. Qualitative analysis suggests branding affects user views of popularity, trust and specialization. We discuss implications for search engine marketing and the design of search engine quality studies.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=35348874299&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1145/1242572.1242734
DO - 10.1145/1242572.1242734
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:35348874299
SN - 1595936548
SN - 9781595936547
T3 - 16th International World Wide Web Conference, WWW2007
SP - 1139
EP - 1140
BT - 16th International World Wide Web Conference, WWW2007
T2 - 16th International World Wide Web Conference, WWW2007
Y2 - 8 May 2007 through 12 May 2007
ER -