Changes in the Search Landscape and How They Impact Search Measurement

In July 2007, Comscore revamped search measurement with the introduction of qSearch 2.0, which expanded the view of search beyond the traditional search sections to include searches at retailers, travel sites, directories, etc… anywhere that a user might submit a search. qSearch 2.0 captured the broad adoption of search technology throughout the web to improve the user experience.

Since that time, we’ve seen a wave of change across the web that has changed the very nature of a web page, from an object that is requested and delivered, to one that is a live platform that can integrate content from many sources. And search has changed along with it…

The recent innovation deployed by a number of search engines is to go beyond simply providing a search box along with content, but to weave their search engines into the user experience.

There are at least two reasons they’re doing this. Search can be used as a powerful contextual content discovery technology. By providing search results that are highly relevant to the content being consumed by a user, properties like, MSN and Yahoo! can provide intuitive and convenient content discovery experiences. Also, by providing search results in context across their network, those sites are able to leverage the size of their audience to expose more users to their search services.

Traditionally, the industry has thought about a “search” event as a submission of a query that subsequently presents a set of results to a user. Comscore’s definition of search requires that the user be presented with search results and be able to completely change or refine their search directly from the result page. This encompasses the traditional “text box” query, as is the case with the major search engines’ main search entry point.

Some context-driven search experiences also meet Comscore’s current criteria for qualifying as a search and are therefore counted in qSearch market share reporting. At the same time, Comscore recognizes that these are inherently different experiences compared to traditional web search queries. And because context-driven searches are sometimes monetized at different rates than traditional searches, we believe it is important to provide the marketplace with visibility into how they are contributing to search share. For this reason, we will continue to explicitly quantify context-driven search volume in our monthly release notes to clients.

That said, the continued evolution of search and emerging innovations in how it is used to enhance user experience, calls for a thoughtful review of how we classify various types of searches, count them and report them. We want to ensure that we provide comprehensive and flexible measurement that meets the needs of the various constituencies in the digital marketplace. As our thinking evolves, we will include relevant stakeholders in the discussion and clearly communicate our thinking and rationale to the marketplace. While we will maintain the current method through the end of the second quarter to avoid reporting disruptions, we will aim to implement proposed revisions in the third quarter, ideally starting with the release of July data in the first half of August. Stay tuned to the Comscore blog to find out more in the coming weeks.