Addressing people's information needs directly in a web search result page

Web search engines have historically focused on connecting people with information resources. For example, if a person wanted to know when their flight to Hyderabad was leaving, a search engine might connect them with the airline where they could find flight status information. However, search engines have recently begun to try to meet people’s search needs directly, providing, for example, flight status information in response to queries that include an airline and a flight number. In this paper, we use large scale query log analysis to explore the challenges a search engine faces when trying to meet an information need directly in the search result page. We look at how people's interaction behavior changes when inline content is returned, finding that such content can cannibalize clicks from the algorithmic results. We see that in the absence of interaction behavior, an individual's repeat search behavior can be useful in understanding the content's value. We also d...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: WWW
• Authors: Lydia B. Chilton, Jaime Teevan
• Keywords: Flight Status Information, Information, Internet Technology, Search Engine, WWW 2011