a research report on

8/6/2019 A Research Report On

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MARKET RESEARCH Page 1

A Research report on

CUSTOMER PREFERENCE OF THE SEARCH ENGINES


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3

2.INTRODUCTION 4

3.LITERATURE REVIEW 11

4.RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 17

5.USE OF ILLUSTRATIONS 20

6.ANALYSIS 21

7.LIMITATIONS 32

8.RECOMMENDATION 33

9.CONCLUSION


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The increase in the use of the Internet service has brought a great diversification in theeconomies of the world. The Internet service plays an important role in every ones life. The

internet facility has mostly affected the life of the developing countries like India, China,

Indonesia and Malaysia. The use of the internet has mainly become very necessary due to

several activities such as searching topics, words and various unknown facts. They are also

used for the social networking, downloading and various activities.

These facilities can be only used when you know the link of the site directly or this links canonly be connected through the search engines. Search Engines made the people to use the

internet to the most. There are various search engines such as (Google, Yahoo, Ask, Live

etc) which can be used to link to the main site which is desired by the user. The search

engines mainly presents with the many related sites which may be connected directly from

that search.

Though only few of the search engines very famous, but with the emerging technology there

is a great change in the preference of the search engines. The young people and the old

age people are following a different trend in the preference of the search engines. So it is

very important for the different companies to understand the change in trend and the

preference of the customer.

It is very important for the company to know about their customer and their preference. Thus

this study is very important for the companies point of view.


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INTRODUCTION

The use of the internet has made the world to change to a place where it has become a

necessity for the countries. India stands 5th

in the internet usage, statistics revels it will be3rd by the end of 2013 followed by USA and China. The countries now stand in such a

position that without the internet facility, the country may be stand still. The internet facilities

are being used by mostly all the age groups. The internet facility becomes null and void

without the presence of the search engines.

The search engines play an important role for the internet users. The search engines such

as Google and Yahoo has a great penetration throughout the countrys population. Mostusers are students, business professionals and several agents. But there has been

difference in the % use of the search engines.

The search engines help mostly all the people of the country, they easily provides with the

contains of the search. The search engines provides with the many options for all the

people which makes the work very easy and faster. The search engines provide with link by

a simple search. For example: If someone wants to find the best doctor for the orthoproblem its very simple for the people to find it out without knowing the or having the direct

contact with the doctor, rather they can easily type the best orthopedic in India and can

have easy option for selecting the doctor with their appointment sitting at home.

Three Types of Search Engines

The term "search engine" is often used generically to describe crawler-based search

engines, human-powered directories, and hybrid search engines. These types of searchengines gather their listings in different ways, through crawler-based searches, human-

powered directories, and hybrid searches.

Crawler-based search engines


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Crawler-based search engines, such as Google, create their listings automatically. They"crawl" or "spider" the web, then people search through what they have found. If web pagesare changed, crawler-based search engines eventually find these changes, and that canaffect how those pages are listed. Page titles, body copy and other elements all play a role.

The life span of a typical web query normally lasts less than half a second, yet involves anumber of different steps that must be completed before results can be delivered to a

person seeking information. The following graphic (Figure 1) illustrates this life span

3. The search results are returnedto the user in a fraction of asecond.

1. The web server sends the query to the indexservers. The content inside the index servers issimilar to the index in the back of a book - it tellswhich pages contain the words that match thequery.

2. The query travels to thedoc servers, which actuallyretrieve the storeddocuments. Snippets aregenerated to describe eachsearch result.


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Human-powered directories

A human-powered directory, such as the Open Directory Project depends on humans for itslistings. (Yahoo!, which used to be a directory, now gets its information from the use ofcrawlers.) A directory gets its information from submissions, which include a shortdescription to the directory for the entire site, or from editors who write one for sites theyreview. A search looks for matches only in the descriptions submitted. Changing web

pages, therefore, has no effect on how they are listed. Techniques that are useful forimproving a listing with a search engine have nothing to do with improving a listing in adirectory. The only exception is that a good site, with good content, might be more likely toget reviewed for free than a poor site.

Hybrid search engines

Today, it is extremely common for crawler-type and human-powered results to be combinedwhen conducting a search. Usually, a hybrid search engine will favor one type of listingsover another. For example, MSN Search is more likely to present human-powered listingsfrom Look Smart. However, it also presents crawler-based results, especially for moreobscure queries.

There are different search engines which help the people are Google ,Yahoo,

Rediff,Bing and Ask etc. The most preferred search engines are Google and Yahoo.Both the search engines have a great competition among themselves. The Yahoo had most

of the market share but now they are facing great competition from Google. Now the market

share of Google is more than the Yahoo and others search engines, because Google is

providing friendlierinteraction with the customers.


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Top ChoicesThe search engines below are all excellent choices to start with when searching for

information.

Googlehttp://www.google.com

Voted four times most Outstanding Search Engine by Search Engine Watch readers,Google has a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for those searching the

web. The crawler-based service provides both comprehensive coverage of the web

along with great relevancy. It's highly recommended as a first stop in your hunt for

whatever you are looking for.

Google provides the option to find more than web pages, however. Using on the topof the search box on the Google home page, you can easily seek out images from

across the web, discussions that are taking place on Usenet newsgroups, locate

news information or perform product searching. Using the More links provides

access to human-compiled information from the Open Directory, catalog

searching and other services. Google is also known for the wide range of features it offers, such as cached links

that let you "resurrect" dead pages or see older versions of recently changed ones. It

offers excellent spell checking, easy access to dictionary definitions, integration of

stock quotes, street maps, telephone numbers and more. The Google Toolbar has

also won a popular following for the easy access it provides to Google and its

features directly from the Internet Explorer browser.

In addition to Google's unpaid editorial results, the company also operates its ownadvertising programs. The cost-per-click Ad Words program places ads on Google

as well as some of Google's partners. Similarly, Google is also a provider of unpaid

editorial results to some other search engines.


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Google was originally a Stanford University project by students Larry Page andSergey Brin called BackRub. By 1998, the name had been changed to Google, and

the project jumped off campus and became the private company Google. It remains

privately held today.

Yahoohttp://www.yahoo.com

Launched in 1994, Yahoo is the web's oldest "directory," a place where humaneditors organize web sites into categories. However, in October 2002, Yahoo made a

giant shift to crawler-based listings for its main results. These came from Googleuntil February 2004. Now, Yahoo uses its own search technology.

In addition to excellent search results, you can use tabs above the search box on theYahoo home page to seek images, Yellow Page listings or use Yahoo's excellent

shopping search engine.

Like Google, Yahoo sells paid placement advertising links that appear on its own siteand which are distributed to others.

Overture was formerly called Go To until late 2001. Technology AltaVista andAllTheWeb was combined with that of Inktomi, a crawler-based search engine that

grew out UC Berkeley and then launched as its own company in 1996, to make the

current Yahoo crawler. Yahoopurchased Inktomi in March 2003.


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LITERATURE REVIEW

(TELANG RAHUL 2004)The Internet search engine market has seen a proliferation of

entrantsover the past few years. Whereas Yahoo was the early market leader, there hasbeenentry by both lower-quality engines and higher-quality ones (such as Google). Prior

work on quality differentiation requires that low-quality products have low prices inorder to

survive in a market with high-quality products. However, the price chargedto users of search

engines is typically zero. Therefore, consumers do not face a tradeoffbetween quality and

price. Why do lower-quality products survive in such a market?We develop a vertical

differentiation model that explains this phenomenon. The qualityof the results provided by a

search engine is inherently stochastic, and there is nocharge for using an engine.

Therefore, users who try out one engine may consult alower-quality engine in the same

session. This "residual demand" allows lower-qualityproducts to survive in equilibrium. We

then extend our triode to incorporate horizontaldifferentiation as well and show that residual

demand leads to higher qualityand less differentiation in this market. Engines want to attract

competitors' customersand therefore have a strong incentive to be "similar" to each other.

THE MARKET FOR INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES has witnessed rapid growth since

itsinception. Search engines and search engine-based portals consistently rank as someof

the heavily visited sites in the market.' On the consumer side, surveys indicate thatsearch

engines are the most important promotional method used by e-commercesites and they

represent the most common way the new sites are discovered by users.Users spend a

significant amount of time on search engines looking for relevantinformation [81.This market

has also seen many changes on the side of the firms. Yahoo was anearly entrant and

market leader. Subsequently, the market has witnessed the entry ofdifferent engines with

both lower-quality engines and higher-quality ones (such asGoogle, now the preeminent

engine). Hundreds of engines are in the market, despitethe presence of a few well-

established sites such as Google and Yahoo.


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The industrial organization literature has long established that different productscan coexist

in a market at the same time. Typically, this isdemonstrated in models of vertical (quality) or

horizontal (taste) differentiation. Akey feature of vertical differentiation rnodels is that a low-

quality good must have alower price than a high-quality good. Otherwise, all consumers

would buy the highqualityproduct. However, the price charged to users of .search engines is

typicallyzero, with revenues being earned from advertisers. Therefore, consumers do not

facea tradeoff between quality and price. Why do lower-quality products survive in sucha

market?Similarly, a key result in horizontal differentiation models is that maximum

differentiationamong products is optimal when users incur quadratic transportation costs.

This enables firms to charge higher prices, and leads to higher profits. Since theprice is not

a strategic variable in the search engine market, what outcome should weexpect?

(CASTELLUCCIO MICH AEL July 2010) The Google Search engine is an engineering

marvel. Considerwhat it does.While continuously searching andindexing the content of the

largest collection of humanknowledge ever assembled, Google Search answers anyand all

queries about the collection and returns itsresponses in about half a second.The adolescent

technology, now 13 years old, wasdeveloped by Larry Page and Sergei Brin back in the late

1990s, and today it processes several hundred millionqueries every day. The searches can

be simple text searches,requests for images, maps, up-to-date earthquakeinformationyou

name it.If you know the keyboard shortcuts, there are morethan two dozen specialized

searches that are as close asthe Google entry field. Say you dont know the area codefor a

phone number youre looking at. Key in the threenumbers of the area code, and Google will

return a mapof the area covered by that code. Need a dictionary? Typein the word define

followed by a colon and the wordyou want to look up. The words Time Perth Australiawill

return the current time in that city; Chicago Cubsyields current win/loss record, score of


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the last game, andthe next game. Key in the words population 07645(thats the ZIP code

for here in Montvale, N.J.), and youllnot only get the current population, but also five

poundsof other demographics, including the most commonoccupations for males and the

average snowfall for thearea. The words 240 Euro in USD will convert the cashyou

brought back from your last trip, and weather07645 will show you a four-day forecast for

Montvale,N.J. Dont forget to check outthe built-in calculator for Google. It can handle

basicmath as well as sophisticated formulas, all on the Google

entry field. Just enter the problem, formula, or arithmeticstring in the search fieldno need

to call up a separate page or device. Not only does Google Search map and manage the

vastnessof the Internet, but it also is quickscience-fictionquick. Think about someone

going to the library to look up,say, Minimata. Once there, they pull out a card-catalog

drawer,flip through the alphabet, note a long number on a pieceof paper, close the drawer

and wander up to the second floor,making left and right turns in the stacks, finally finding

thenumber thats written down, and opening the book to theindex looking for the place

where the answer might be.Now imagine a different approach. Enter Minimata in

the Google search field, and click. In 0.26 seconds you have281,000 results from worldwide

sources (the figures arefrom the search I just did on the computer on which Imwriting this).

And the most relevant stories, images, andvideos are at the top of the list, sorted thanks to

Googles

Page Rank algorithm.For those who think that computing has accelerated lifeto an

unacceptably frantic pace, the alternative in the caseabove is that in the time it takes your

friend to wander off tothe library for some answers, you could have made your lunch, eaten

your lunch, and then taken a nap out on theporch while waiting for your friend to go and

gather someanswers about Minimatasite of one of the worst environmentaldisasters of

the 20th Century.


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CAFFEINE INDEXING SYSTEM

Because the Web is in a constant state of flux, any servicelike Google Search would benefit

from improvements thathelp it keep up. On June 8, Google announced on its officialblog a

new search index called Caffeine. The post explained,today, were announcing the

completion of a new webindexing system called Caffeine. Caffeine provides 50

percentfresher results for Web searches than our last index, andits the largest collection of

web content weve offered.Whether its a news story, a blog or a forum post, you cannow

find links to relevant content much sooner after it ispublished than was possible ever

before.

The Mountain View Company said there were two reasonsfor this new system. One, the

Web is becoming more complexas pages are enriched with content in many more

formatsthan just text. And, second, Peoples expectations forsearch are higher than they

used to be. Searchers want tofind the latest relevant content, and publishers expect to

befound the instant they publish.Caffeine will make the content on Googles index more

contemporaneous. Or, as PC World characterizes it, the newsystem will be closer to live

than Googles previous system.The Google spiders that are constantly crawling the Web

togather new content are now not only smarter, but they aremuch faster.Matt Cutts, head of

Googles Web team, toldPC World the new search engine indexes the new

contentimmediately: We process it immediately so we can serve itseconds later. Areas

where this will make the most differencewill be news and the interactive content that

drivessites such as Facebook and Twitter.Cutts explained that in the early days Google

wouldupdate its index every four months. In 2000, it shortenedthe schedule to every month,but the updates still took aweek to 10 days to complete. And because the Google indexlives

on many different data centers, when you did a search,depending on which data center was

processing yourrequest, the return might be different from the same searchdone by

someone in a different location.The Caffeine system has been installed in all the


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Googledata centers, and it will increase not only the speed, but alsothe amount of

information the system can handle. On theorder of 100 petabytes, according to Cutts. A

petabyte is aunit of information equal to one quadrillion (short scale)bytes, or 1,000

terabytes (Wikipedia). By comparison,Wikipedia writes, Google processes about 24

petabytes ofdata per day, and AT&T has about 19 petabytes of datatransferred through

their networks each day.In the June 8 blog, Google used several analogies toexplain the

change: In fact, every second, Caffeine processeshundreds of thousands of pages in

parallel. If this were apile of paper it would grow three miles taller every second.Caffeine

takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage inone database and adds new information

at a rate of hundredsof thousands of gigabytes per day.The old engine was updated in

layers, but the newapproach strives for a global simultaneity. Google explains,

Our old index had several layers, some of which wererefreshed at a faster rate than others;

the main layer wouldupdate every couple of weeks. To refresh a layer of the oldindex, we

would analyze the entire Web, which meant therewas a significant delay between when we

found a page andmade it available to you.With Caffeine, we analyze the Web

in small portions and update our search index on a continuousbasis, globally.The Caffeine

blog ends with this assurance: Look formore improvements in the months to come.

RESEARCHMETHODOLOGY

OBJECTIVES


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TARGET POPULATION

The target population for this survey is mostly the educated and e-literate people.They are

mostly aware of the recent search engines.They are all active internet users.

TIME

(12th march-18th march 2011).

SAMPLING

Sample unit: Customers using internet and also uses search engines.

Sample plan:The selection of the samples is done following the two sampling

techniques,which are:

- Simple random sampling

- Convenience sampling

Sample size:20 (Both male & female).

COLLECTION OF DATA


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The data was collected from primary sources. A survey was conducted through structured

questionnaire. The study was done among consumers who are active internet users.

Primary Data:-Primary data is collected through personal interviews with the help of

structured questionnaires.

Secondary Data:-Secondary resources like books and internet sites,online databases are

used for collection of data.

QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN

Questionnaire was divided into six major heads:

y General informationy Preferred search enginesy Provided linksy Accuracy of the search enginesy Friendliness of the search engines

USE OF ILLUSTRATIONS


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Illustrations in this project are done by 3d pie charts. Pie charts are present in the qualitative

research.


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QUALITATIVE RESEARCHANALYSIS

AGE

Age No. of people Percentage (%)

15-19 7 23.33

20-24 9 30.00

25-29 5 16.66

30-34 3 10.00

35-39 4 13.34

40-44 2 6.67

Total 30 100


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ANALYSIS

From the above table, it reveals that the age group of 20-24 uses the search engine the

most, followed by the age group 15-19. The age group of 20-24 mainly consists of thegraduates. The graduates do need to use search engine the most as they need to search

the additional informations and the also searches lot of the study materials. The other age

groups also plays an important role, they consists of around 39% which shows that they

should also be paid equivalent importance, because they mainly represents the service

holders or the business person.


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SEX

Sex No. of people Percentage (%)

Male 19 63.33%

Female 11 36.67%

Total 30 100%


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ANALYSIS

From the above table, out of the 30 respondent (19 male and 11 female), the above data

reveals that the male dominates the use of the search engines. Thus it is very necessary for

the Google and Yahoo to pay more attentions to the male customers and develop the

search engine paying more attention to the male


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QUALIFICATION

Qualification No. of respondent Percentage (%)

Class 10-12 10 33.00%

Graduate 15 50.00%

Post Graduate 5 17.00%

Total 30 100.00%


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ANALYSIS

From the above table, it is revealed that qualification plays an important role in the

preference of the search engine. Graduates uses the search engines the most, followed by

class 10-12 customers. This shows and also draws the attentions of the marketers that they

should concentrate more on the graduates and the customers who pursuing their schooling.

There is a great opportunity for the marketers to develop and focus for the Post Graduates

customers.


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PROFESSION

Profession No. of respondent Percentage (%)

Student 12 40%

Service 16 53.33%

Business 2 6.67%

Total 30 100%


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ANALYSIS

From the above table, main intension was to find the impact of the profession in the usage

of the search engines. It is found that the, most of the service holders use the search

engines followed by the students. It is also revealed that the Business class customer uses

the search engine very less. The opportunity for the marketers is that they can develop or in

corporate more useful stuff for the business class people.


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ANALYSIS

From the above table, it is very clear that most of the customer prefer Google than that of

the Yahoo, based on the various attributes such as AGE, SEX, QUALIFICATION,

PROFESSION, ACCURACY and FRIENDLINESS.


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ANALYSIS

Out of the 30 respondents 19 customers prefer Google for its accuracy and 11 Customers

prefer Yahoo for its accuracy, which comes to 63% and 37% respectively.


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PROPER LINK

Proper Link No. of respondent Percentage (%)

Google 20 66.66%

Yahoo 10 33.34%

Total 30 100%


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ANALYSIS

Out of the 30 respondents, 20 respondents say Google provides with the proper link and

only 10 of the respondents says that the Yahoo provides with the proper link, whichapproximately counts to 67% and 33% respectively. Google plays an important role to

provide with the proper link, Students and service holders prefers to go for Google search.


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FRIENDLINESS

Friendliness No. of respondents Percentage (%)

Google 21 70%

Yahoo 9 30%

Total 30 100%


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The Crosstabs analysis has been done to find the demographic impact on the search

engines. From the above analysis it can be stated that , in the age group 15-19 and 20-24

all the respondents prefer Google, whereas in the age group 25-29 out of the 5 respondent

2 prefer Google and 3 prefers Yahoo but in the age group of 30-34, 35-39 and 40-44 all

prefers Yahoo. Thus it is clear that Google is preferred by the young generation whereas

Yahoo is mostly preferred older generation customers.

Case Processing Summary

sex * preferred Cross tabulation

Count

preferred Tot

Google yahoo

sex Male 18 1 19

Female 0 11 11

Total 18 12 30

Cases

Valid Missing Total

N Percent N Percent N Percent

sex * preferred30 100,0% 0 ,0% 30 100,0%


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Coefficients (a)

Model

Unstandardized

Coefficients

Standardized

Coefficients t Sig.

B Std. Error Beta

1 (Constant) ,077 ,113 ,683 ,501

qualification ,003 ,122 ,004 ,023 ,982

profession ,093 ,125 ,129 ,740 ,466

accuracy ,887 ,203 ,873 4,375 ,000

proper link -1,40E-015 ,272 ,000 ,000 1,000friendliness -,043 ,207 -,040 -,207 ,838

a Dependent Variable: preferred

From the above tabulation it is revealed that Qualification, Proper Link and Friendliness play

an important role in the preference of the search engines, whereas accuracy play least

important role in the preference of the search engines.

The F value gives the validity of the model. The F value is 34,149 which is good for the

validity of the model


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LIMITATIONS

1) The sample size is not a big one. It is very small.

2) Humans have a tendency to behave artificially when they know that they are beingobserved. Thus, the respondents upon whom the research is carried behave

artificially when they are aware that their attitudes, beliefs, views, etc. are being

observed and surveyed.

3) The research is not free from bias. The reproduction of the same project on adifferent class of respondents can give different research results.

4) The research may vary according to sample size as well as target population.


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RECOMMENDATION

The emerging youth population is an opportunity for marketers. The search

engines are being used by almost all the people of the countries. It is becoming one

of the important parts of the life. India is one of the 2nd

largest populated country of

the world, thus there is a great untapped market. The marketers should take

advantage of the market by making them aware of about the search engines and

proper development of the applications which is basically demanded by the

customers.

Google has to target the female population, the target is totally towards the male

population. They can easily increase the options for the female search and should

provide with the proper links.

Yahoo had a great market but had a great set back after Google came in the market,

customer of Yahoo started to use the Google search engine. Yahoo had to improve

upon the male segment of the customer and any way need to have the competitive

advantage by improving the above mentioned independent variables.


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CONCLUSION

1. From our current findings, GOOGLE is the most widely used search engine in India.Itis the market leader at present in India.

2. Different users have different expectations from the search engines. The Google hasalmost satisfied its customers with its different strategies.

3. Categories of people who do not use these websites are those who cant usetechnology and some intellectual people who think it to be a waste of time.

4. There is a clear indication of the importance of the search engines for the differentgroups of customers, there is still a large market to be tapped as per the Indian

market scenario


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REFERENCE

BRADLOW, E. T., AND SCHMITTLEIN,D. C. 2000. The little engines that could:Modeling the performance of World Wide Web search engines. Market. Sci. 19, 43

62.

CASTELLUCCIO MICHAEL, July 2010,Caffeinated Google. Journal from Google.

GORDON, M., AND PATHAK, P. 1999. Finding information on the World Wide Web:the retrieval effectivenessof search engines. Inf. Proc. Manage. 35, 2, 141180.

DOBRA, A., AND FIENBERG, S. E. 2004. How large is the World Wide Web? WebDyn. 2344. GILLMAN, D. 1998. A Chertoff bound for random walks on expandergraphs. SIAM J. Comput. 27, 4,12031220.

TELANG RAHUL, 2004,Journal of Management Information System.Vol. 21, No. 2.pp. 137-160

WEBSITESy http://unsweb.aucegypt.edu/UNSWEB2/NetIntro.htm#whats_the_internety http://www.grassrootsdesign.com/intro/internet.phpy http://searchenginewatch.com/2


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APPENDIX

SURVEYQUESTIONNAIRES

NAME:- ..

AGE:-15-19. 20-24.. 25-29 30-34. 35-39. 40-44.... (yrs)

SEX:- Male.. Female...

Qualification:- Class 10-12.. Graduate.. Post graduate.

Profession:- Student. Service. Business..

1) Which is the most preferred search engine?a) GOOGLE b) YAHOO .

2) Which is more accurate?a) GOOGLE b) YAHOO .

3) Which search engine provide with proper link?a) GOOGLE b) YAHOO

4) Which search engine is friendlier to use?a) GOOGLE. b) YAHOO


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a research report on

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