The Evidence Shows that Users Are Not Satisfied With Google’s Results

A recent study published by SEMRush has revealed that a certain amount of people who use Google to search for something are not content with the results they find. The research goes on to say that these users need to “refine their queries” in order for Google to better understand what it is they are looking for. This, along with other findings, seems to point to the fact that some people may be having difficulty using Google to find everything they need.

A recent tweet that compared Google to a dying mall struck a nerve with thousands of people, which may explain the current level of dissatisfaction with the tech giant.

Keep on reading to know more about this unsatisfactory Google Search Results.

List of Google Search ranking updates on October 23, 2022

What did SEMRush’s research say?

According to recent research, SEMRus stated:

“There’s a great deal of keyword refinement at play here.

If we combine the number of Google clicks with the number of keyword changes, we see that almost 30% of people are either refining or extending their searches in some way.”

If a user enters a search query and then re-enters the same query with different keywords, this is an indication that the user might not be satisfied with Google’s initial search results.

Tweet About Unsatisfactory Google Search Results

A tweet about the difficulty of finding things on Google went viral in October, receiving over 60,000 likes and 7,000 retweets.

Many of the responses to the tweet noted that Google often has difficulty understanding search queries, and users often have to redo their queries using advanced search operators like quotation marks.

A user tweeted that they should try using quotation marks.

“Try using ” “

— Elad Nof (@EladNof) October 25, 2022”

Then, the person who started the discussion made a valid point that users shouldn’t have to input advanced search operators to make Google find what they’re looking for.

She responded:

“Some of the quote tweets are saying things to the effect of “if you know the tricks, it still works,” which misses the point.

1. A lot of the old tricks don’t work anymore

2. We shouldn’t have to try this hard to trick a search engine into giving useful results

— Emily Velasco (@MLE_Online) October 25, 2022”

And another user tweeted that all they want is for Google to find what they are searching for.

“All I want is a search engine that searches for what I asked for!

— Rue Mohr (@RueNahcMohr) October 25, 2022”

And it’s not just non-SEOs who are noticing that Google keeps searching for the wrong things.

SEOs are noticing, too. In fact, they’re noticing a lot more than most people realize.

Sarah Carling tweeted a screenshot of a search for how many calories are in a bottle of wine. However, Google changed the query and instead insisted that she was searching for how many calories are in a glass of wine.

“Or that there are only 123 calories in a whole bottle of wine

— Sarah C (@SarahCarling) October 11, 2022”

Here’s a screenshot of the same search query with the word “bottle” in quotes.

Even though we’ve put the word “bottle” in quotes, Google still insists that the search query is about a “glass” of wine.

SEMRush Research Results

Users Search With Many Keywords

The research showed that a majority of desktop and mobile searchers use 1-2 keywords when conducting a search. However, 38.2% of desktop users and 39.9% of mobile users search with 3-4 keywords. This suggests that users today tend to search using long keyword phrases.

According to the research, 30.1% of desktop searches and 29.1% of mobile searches used 5-11+ keyword phrases. This could indicate that searchers are having difficulty finding what they’re looking for.

Other data from the research seems to support this theory. 

For example, the data shows that searchers are taking longer to find what they’re looking for, and they’re using more specific keywords when they search.

Users Make Multiple Queries For the Same Search

SEMRush discovered that more than half of desktop users who perform two searches in a row, do so with keyword phrases that are similar by 60% or more keywords.

SEMRush has found that there may be some difficulty for users when it comes to finding what they’re looking for. This is based on data that could be interpreted as evidence of this.

“We can see that about 55% of the times two searches are performed in a user’s journey contain keywords with a similarity rating of 0.6 (60%) or more, which could mean that many users aren’t satisfied with the results of the first SERP and need to refine their queries.”

Even though the number of searches with similar keywords is lower for mobile search users at 38.9%, that’s still a pretty significant amount of searches (nearly 40%) that need to be reformulated.

Is It Harder to Find The Right Answers With Google?

Many people in the Twitter discussion were unhappy with Google’s search results. Some members of the search marketing community think that users may have forgotten how bad other search engines used to be. However, the same person also admitted that they have to use the word “Reddit” in their search in order to find what they’re looking for. This implies that Google Search is not returning satisfactory results.

“I’d love to see a real longitudinal study of this over time – I suspect we may have forgotten how poor search used to be (though I acknowledge that I append [reddit] to more searches than I’d expect these days).

— Will Critchlow (@willcritchlow) October 26, 2022”

Conclusion 

It looks like Google needs to improve the quality of its search results. This problem is not new – it’s been around for years. And it’s one of the main reasons why users are so unsatisfied with Google’s results.

If you have any other questions or concerns about Google, please contact us anytime at EverRanks. Thank you for reading, we are always excited when one of our posts is able to provide useful information on a topic like this!

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