You mention “Phone Apps.” has a Cause For a drop In “Search” I’am Sure that Explains Part of It But I Think the Slow Economy has Something to Do with it People Don’t Have The Money To Spend and even Know People that Have Gotten Rid Of Cable T.V. and Internet Service to Cut Back On Their Bills.Besides I think Too Many People are Busy on Facebook to “Search” Drew H.

Maybe they found what they were looking for?

Even if people use smartphones, aren’t they using Google, Bing or Yahoo are their search engines?

Article is idiotic, fails to answer the headline question, referencing comments. Is this journalism or fraud?

I think people who say that bookmarking at least mentally bookmarking sites has increased in the last year… I mean it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to remember that Wikipedia will pop up in many of your searches for certain type things… and if you are looking for a movie go to imdb and if you are looking for medical advice webmd… if you are wanting to shop go to e-bay or amazon… If they did a search they now know they will end up there anyway…so why waste the time searching?

Also it may be that search results have become more relevant- reducing the number of tries to find what they are looking for…

Or maybe people are getting better at searching for things using longer search terms and remembering to add the area they live in etc. This would also reduce the number of tries on searches.

A huge factor is 2.0 sites. Take youtube for example. Ask almost any teenager their search order when they’re looking for something. Most of them will tell you they search on youtube -first- then they try a search engine. Surprised me too. Very, very common for the younger generation.

I would agree with Thomas that more people are bookmarking sites they use regularly becuse they have learnt to use them. we should ask ourselves the question is this a long term trend and will we see the coninued drop of the search engines as a way of finding services, products and oinformation online. It wouold be using the internet for specific I would agree with Thomas that more people are bookmarking sites they use regularly because they have learnt to use them.

We should ask ourselves the questions:
Is this a long term trend?
Will we see a continued drop of the search engines as a way of finding services, products and information online?

I would also like to see if browser changes have influenced these changes in numbers.

I have also observed with many people the way they use browsers and type the web address into the search field instead of the address bar in their browser. If they have changed this habit and are using the address bar it would account for some of the drop.

The use of bookmarking is increasing as people develop their skills and preferred shopping, information and social media sites they use their own directory list in their browser to find their required website.

For those companies that have websites competing with the market leaders it will become more difficult to compete if the potential customers stop using search and rely on their own bookmarks. It will also damage the SEO and SEM markets.

There are still plenty of searches being done with plenty of opportunity. Business websites will have to ensure that they become the bookmarked website and will have to ensure that their sites are the preferred for their range of product and service.

The emphasis in the next few years will move to user experience and away from SEO and SEM. It is a waste of resources getting high traffic levels to the website when the website is full of user barriers and hurdles.

Demand for website user experience reviews has increased but few people are skilled or experienced enough to carry these specialist heuristic tests.

Interesting thoughts

Kind regards

Nigel T Packer

I think that searchers have learned to find what their searching for!

I feel the economic recession has a lot to do with this, especially with business oriented searches going down for suppliers, etc.

From reading all the comments and more importantly watching analytic results on Google and Bing search is down but site visits are actually up. Bookmarking, social networks and shopping services or

All forms of social media search become more and more important. The arbitrary changes of search engine algorithms and the massive amount of low quality seo spam sites are good reasons to look for alternative sources of information.

Facebook, twitter and stuff?

since Google owns YouTube… when do you think they start counting YouTube searches as Google searches?

I think less searches are partly due to:
- web sites improved stickiness, and they have more returning traffic (skipping the search engine)
- Web visitors improved the way they search and get to the data with less searches
- recession – less searches for products
- many people on social media web sites
- Google Locals and Bing Locals giving you answers even when you search broadly. if you are in Toronto, and searching for Carpet Cleaning, the Google locals will give you results, as if you searched for Carpet Cleaning Service Toronto