Penn State research study reveals that about 80% of searches are informational in nature, whereas 10% are navigational and another 10% are transactional. The researchers reviewed over 1.5 million queries from hundreds of thousands of search engines users to prove the "the 80/20 rule that 80 percent of the cases can be achieved with these clear-cut methods," said IST assistant professor Jim Jansen.

Jansen said his study is 74-percent accurate and hopes to improve the accuracy rate to a 90-percent yield.

How does he define each type of search?

• Informational searching involves looking for a specific fact or topic
• Navigational searching seeks to locate a specific Web site
• Transactional searching looks for information related to buying a particular product or service.

Full Research Paper

Source:→ SEL

Search, Web Search, Internet Search, Search Behavior, Research