Searchers Get Specific | Behaviour in the Short and Long Tail of Search

In previous blogs, I’ve discussed our analysis of the search logs released by AOL. We’ve determined that search volume is concentrated in the top 1% of terms sought and that search follows a law of thirds:

• The Short Tail of Search - 1% of search terms are crazily popular and account for one-third of search volume
• The Long Tail of Search - 75% of search terms are exceedingly rare – they appear only once in the three months in which data was collected. They are responsible for one-third of search volume.
• The Other Third - The remaining 24% of terms lie between these extremes.

How Does Search Behaviour Differ By Search Volume?

We analyzed the average number of terms in each search phrase for each of the one-third categories. The following graphic illustrates the results:

(Click to Enlarge)

The long tail of search – the phrases sought only once – contain on average one more search term than the short tail of search (the 1% of search terms that make up one-third of search volume). In other words, the less common the search term, the more detailed the search query.

The More Words Used in a Search, the More Valuable the Visitor

OneUpWeb released a study in 2005 that to our mind did not provoke the attention it deserves. They analyzed hundreds of thousands of searches and the conversion rates of visitors performing those searches and came to two conclusions:

• The more words a person types into a search engine, the more likely they are to convert when they get to the site (convert being purchase a product, subscribe to a newsletter, download a whitepaper, etc.)
• One exception: people searching on company names convert highly even if the search contains a single word.

The following graphic combines data from the three months covered in their study – the trend is compelling.

(This graphic excludes searches using company names. Click to Enlarge)

Searches using five or more search terms convert at rates approximating that of searches containing one term.

Marketing Bottom Line and Implications for SEO Best Practices

Marketers face this challenge:

1. Visitors that use more terms in a search are more valuable – they are more likely to convert.
2. Long search phrases are most common in the long tail of search
3. These long tail searches happen very rarely – at best, only once every three months
4. Marketers can not afford to optimize their site for valuable searches that happen only once every three months.

What is a marketer to do? We argue that the solution is to embed SEO Best Practices during the deployment of a Web Content Management Solution (WCMS). And then create lots of content. But that’s the topic of a future post.