Search for the impact of Internet technology

July 2011, McKinsey released a report on the impact of Internet technology: Search, the purpose of the report is to better assess the far-reaching value of search technology, how the search technology impact on enterprises, individuals, the survey covers 5 countries, 11 industry categories, including advertising, retail, health products, education and so on, The following is the departmental content of the report.

For billions of of people around the world, the Internet has become a necessary channel for social and work everyday, yet people rarely take the time to think about the search engines that help them navigate the web, images and video. Search techniques (search for short) have only been there for 20 years, but it is the cornerstone of the Internet economy.

In 2010, Internet users in the United States used an average of 1500 searches, with a global search of 1.6 trillion times a year.

1. Search Value

Currently, no research has been made to determine the benefits and value of search, and this report will show how search creates value and who benefits. The main findings are as follows:

1 A large number of data shows that the search value of the source of three: save time, price transparency and advertisers visibility. While these are important, they are only part of the search for value creation, which greatly underestimates its value. The report also adds 6 other sources of value, and as the search evolves, there are more ways.

2 in 2009, the search created a conservative estimate of the total global value of 780 billion dollars.

3 The search value of 30%-65% is brought to individuals rather than companies, and in some emerging countries, such as Brazil and India, search brings the greatest value to information seekers and consumers.

4 effective use of the search for the ROI is huge, advertisers benefited the most, the average ROI of 7:1, only to save time in this respect, the average ROI of individual information searchers, content creators, consumers and entrepreneurs is even 10:1, and entrepreneur average ROI is 17:1.

5 If the search is considered easy to quantify, it is wrong. Some are not quantifiable, such as in an emergency, search helps people find information, or help them find like-minded people.

The size of the search is hard to imagine, only in 2010, only on Google, the world has more than 1 trillion independent URLs indexed, 90% of online users will use search engines, individuals on the network time, 10% is spent on the search, about 4 hours a month, Knowledge workers in an enterprise spend an average of 5 hours a week or 12% of all Internet time on their search content.

Most of the data show that search creates only 3 of the value: saving time, increasing price transparency and raising awareness. This report argues that this underestimates the value of search because there are other valuable resources. Some of these can be measured in the form of finance, while others cannot, not because they are difficult to measure or the value they create for society in the monthly financial sense. The following are the 9 value resources investigated in this report:

The list is not exhaustive and there are other values, such as reducing production costs and speeding up innovation.

2, the way users get information

Data can be seen, more and more users are willing to use the links on the social network to navigate the site, many search engine algorithms have begun to incorporate social factors.

3, Content creators search value

Content creators can gain value in a variety of ways, and search not only enhances the visibility of mainstream content creators, but also leads to direct traffic and more obscure long tail content.

The search value of content creators is divided into two sources: search-related advertising benefits (horizontal search engines and site search) and the benefits of content sales--ropo (research online-purchase Offline, online collection of information, Then go to the physical store to buy through E-commerce Web site sales of books, music, video and so on.

4. The future of Search

The future of search is hard to predict, because there is a lot of room for change, but the value of search will only increase as we become more and more dependent on it.

Search is still in its early stages of evolution, and video and image searches still depend on file names or keyword text searches rather than direct image searches.

A previous study by IDC predicts that the number of digital messages will grow by as much as 44% between 2009-2020, and the main task of search technology is to ensure the speed and relevance of the search.

Data show that vertical search engine usage is increasing, for example, on two vertical websites, Amazon and ebay, the product search is 10 times times that of Google's product search. There is also a growing interest in semantic search engines (more accurate understanding of basic search intentions).

More and more relevant search results are personalized, independent search agency in making recommendations, are based on personal information, including user location, metadata, more advanced algorithms, and so on, now, many people in the search industry use the data on social networks to optimize search results, According to emarketer, about 30% of American internet users use social networks to find content in 2009, and 21% use social networks to find videos.

Smartphones, tablets and other portable devices that connect to the network also improve the likelihood of more personalized searches, and new applications will emerge as search continues to grow. At present, the analysis of what people search is used to better understand the future of the development trend society. For example, researchers want to know the search behavior to predict trends, unemployment, consumer demand, and even stock prices.

What does this mean for those involved in the search market? Both individuals and organizations can search faster and more easily than before, and search results are more relevant. But the search industry will be more competitive.