Search Quality is Brand Quality

Greg Linden points to 'The Effect of Brand Awareness on the Evaluation of Search Engine Results', a paper by Bernard J. Jansen et al:

In this paper we investigate the effect of search engine brand (i.e., identifying name that distinguishes a product from its competitors) on evaluation of system performance. Our research is motivated by the large amount of search traffic directed to less than a handful of Web search engines, even though many are of equal technical quality with similar interfaces. We conducted a laboratory experiment with 32 participants measuring the effect of four search engine brands while controlling for the quality of search engine results. Based on average relevance ratings, there was a 25% difference between the most highly rated search engine and the lowest, even though search engine results were identical in both content and presentation. We discuss implications for search engine marketing and the design of empirical studies measuring search engine quality.

Greg summarizes some of the implications of branding with respect to competition in the search space. However, one might also consider branding in the context of a single provider. Google provides search services in at least the following spaces:

• Web search
• Blog search
• Enterprise search (Google Appliance)
• Video Search (Google Video and on YouTube)
• Gmail
• Local Search

While Google has enjoyed a strong brand initially due to some fundamental changes that they brought to search technology (most noticeably PageRank), the technologies that underlie these services are not all the same and, therefore, provide Google with more brand derived value. For example, enterprise intrawebs do not have the same qualities of structure that PageRank requires; searching on YouTube has fundamental quality flaws (ever had results for a search only to find the the video doesn't actually exist!).

Consider the challenge ahead of companies like Powerset and Hakia - which are attempting to bring another fundamental shift to search. Much of the criticism has been leveled at assumed issues with the technology. However, this is not the only battle ground. Establishing brand where there is none is a huge barrier to entry.

Hakia recently launched a new feature which allows for the comparison of their search results with those from a competitor (Google, Yahoo or Microsoft). Hakia has always been about transparency (compare this with others in the NLP search space), and this feature is another step on the path to engaging users to ease them into brand recognition. Entrants have to be far more creative at this level. Personally, I very much want a PowerMouse tshirt from Powerset.