Brian Ussery, an Atlanta SEOer and blogger, reported last week that Google searchers have broken the three-word search term barrier as of the fourth quarter of 2007. The average query is now four words.
That means a lot to SEOers targeting that long tail of search. It also means (maybe) that, collectively, searchers are becoming a bit more sophisticated in their searching, or at least more specific.
Ussery says he and colleagues learned the news from Google's Avinash Kaushik at a social gathering at Google Atlanta. Kaushik "beta tested" a presentation he'd put together during the flight over.
The story's so boring it has to be true.
Hey, mind if I beta test a reading of Deuteronomy? Oh, wait, that's what Leviticus was, wasn't it?
I keed, I keed. Just sayin' I don't think he's name-dropping.
Ussery also learned that 14% of Google clicks were from paid search, and 25% of user queries were unique queries.
Hat tip to Search Engine Roundtable
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Comments
So boring it has to be true
So boring it has to be true :) like it.
thesaurus
This is definitely becoming the norm, and the longer the tails/phrases the more grammatical alternatives have to be considered, with common words such as "with" being replaced with "and" in the tail sentences.
I don't think that the 4 query searches are a good thing
In my opinion, although I may have gotten better at search, it's really that I've learnt how to deal with searches that don't answer my need. I find that i have to long tail my query in order to get a relevant search term...
Very annoying. If Yahoo can remain independent long enough to take their Search intent technology to life, they might just gain me as a user... even though google is "hip"per.
goog news
I think breaking the 3 word search barrier is great news. 4 words makes it easier to target the right people more often. This is exciting news, indeed.
when it stops
Maybe in a distant future average query will be like epic poem about what you want to find.
I'm usually type one word and press Feeling Lucky button. Cause I'M LUCKY )))))
how many words?
checking our google dashboard, each string seems to include in, at and..... do they count?
4 words - try home town
I wonder if theUK
SEO
Wow! Thats incredible. It went from 3 to 4 words in a search. Jees, Whats next? 5? 6? Will it ever end?
'bout time
I wish my clients would take notice of this when giving me stupid keyword lists for SEO
UPDATE
Here is an update to the post you mentioned:
http://www.beussery.com/blog/index.php/2008/02/average-number-of-words-in-a-query-are-4/
SEO
Boring? : )
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