How accurate are search results?

Are you really finding what you're looking for?

So by now you've hopefully familiarized yourself with the basics of search by visiting our search essentials category.  On this page you'll find a series of articles that will fill you in on the basics of search marketing and search engine optimization.  Once you've done that, you'll have a good idea of how companies achieve their ranking in the search results pages, and a good idea of how you can get your own pages up there.  Okay, great, but how high is the quality of the organic search results given that a strong search marketing campaign can influence the rankings so effectively?  Good question.

Are the best companies in the top search results pages?

A study conducted by Jupiter Research and sponsored by iProspect reveals that over a third of searchers believe they are finding the top companies in their industry on the first page of search results.  But if you think about how closely search results correlate to choosing the right keyphrases and optimizing on these, you'll know that just about any company, with the right amount of time and effort, can get themselves a decent ranking for a given keyphrase.  So the top search results actually reflect those companies that are, not necessarily the top experts in their field, but those that are aware of how search works and how to search engine optimize and search market their products and services effectively. 

How closely do search results reflect reality?

The key to remember is that searches cover online content, not offline content.  So older, more traditional, and possibly slower to adapt companies may not have nearly the online presence that newer, smaller, and more technologically savvy companies do.  This trend is changing, and larger companies are spending more on search every month.  The result?  The more companies that invest in search, the more relevant offline information goes online and the more accurately search engine results will reflect reality.