Search marketing firm, iProspect, published the results of a study regarding user behavior and blended search results. The study was conducted by Jupiter Research and sponsored by iProspect. Blended search results are a combination of traditional web page results and one or more specialized results such as news, videos, or images. See the screen shot below for an example of a blended search result. (click to enlarge)
Over the past year Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Live have launched versions of blended search. The iProspect study revealed that search engine users click on news, image, and video results in blended search results more than they click on results in a vertical only search such as Google News or Google Image search.
Key statistics from the study:
- 36% of search engines user click “news” results within blended search results, while only 17% click a “news” result after conducting a news-specific search
- 31% of search engine users click “image” results within blended search results, while 26% click an “image” result after conducting an image-specific search
- 17% of search engine users click “video” results within blended search results, while only 10% click a “video” result after conducting a video-specific search
- While images are the most clicked type of result after a vertical-specific search, news items are the most clicked type of result within blended search results