User Behavior Confirms Marketing Truths - The Three Page Rule
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It’s been repeated over and over again that searchers never look past the first three pages of search engine results, so if your website is not listed in the top 30 you might as well not exist. This study resoundingly confirmed that truism. Only 10 percent of search engine users surveyed stated that they look past the first three pages – so you wouldn’t be seen by 90 percent of web surfers. Even worse, a full 62 percent don’t even bother to look past the first page of results.
It wasn’t always quite this cut and dried. Back in 2002, less than half of search engine users looked at only the first page of results. Also at that time, nearly twice as many users were willing to check out results past the third page. The percentages for 2004 are between those for 2002 and 2006, being very nearly at 2006 levels.
Why are search engine users only looking at relatively few results now as opposed to four years ago? There are a number of possibilities. One is that search engines have become far more efficient in the last four years at returning truly relevant results; there is some evidence to support this theory. Given how much they’ve spent on research and development, one would hope their efficacy had improved! Another possibility is that users are more impatient now, and expect quicker results to their queries, without having to wade through a lot of extraneous links.
There are a few more possible reasons worth considering. Taking a look at the other side of search engines becoming more efficient, SEOs may also have become more efficient, doing a better job of optimizing websites for the search engines and making sure that site content is truly relevant. There are also more websites that are professionally optimized than there were in 2002. Finally, there is the likelihood that search engine users themselves have become more efficient, able to conduct searches more effectively, so that they don’t need (or believe they shouldn’t need) to go past the first 30 results. It could easily be that a combination of all these factors is at work solidifying this “three page rule.”
It’s almost redundant to say that this makes search engine optimization more important than ever. If you needed numbers to validate this truth to your clients, you have them now. This trend is likely to continue as web surfers become increasingly savvy at using search engines, and the search engines get better at returning relevant results.
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