Following Part I, The following are some of the thoughts you left in the comments area:
1. I want to know more about it
2. Quick fix to get some relief for my back
3. What types there are and which one may I be experiencing
4. How to Cure
5. Who can help me
Even with a very small pool of participants we can see individuals may mean different ideas for the same query. If we had more participants you would likely see thousands of other ideas individuals have in mind when searching for that same query.
My next question is:
Why do we, as individuals, have different ideas for the same search query?
Looking forward to reading your thoughts here. Part III coming up tomorrow.
Sahar
Maybe the simple answer is, “because we all think differently”?
Where, a more complex answer might consider…
Firstly, a query as generic as “back pain”, would be to many of us quite different from, “back pain remedies” or “causes of back pain”, but only in that it is more generic.
If you are familiar with search engines, perhaps to the extent that you are an SEO, you may understand the search algoerithm and relavence of keywords more than the typical man on the street.
To some people - they have “back pain” so that’s what they will type.
If I were a medical practicioner, I might have typed “acute back pain” or “lumbar back pain treatment”. The point is, the keywords we choose are a product of us, and our experience.
In summary, “we all think differently”…
Have a great day!
- rich
Its funny, I was pondering this question myself and wrote an article on my blog today (before I saw your post), but in an advertising context which could also be applied to search queries as well. Like if I was querying about back pain I would usually type “fast back pain relief” because to me back pain would mean finding some kind of relief from it…fast. But it really all boils down to “intent” of what the searches were i.e. research, solutions etc.
To get answers also depends on how detailed the query is and how many keywords it would take to get them. Thats tricky. Think: huge database lol.
John
The answer lies in the question: because we are individuals.
The search query is done by people who have different needs and motives. In essence we extract what we need and are motivated by what we want.
I think we should ask the other way round - why do we use the same query, even though we are actually inquiring about different things?
The answer is IMO: Because the search engines taught us to use simple, keyword-like queries; we’ve realized they don’t understand natural language, so we translate our questions into phrases the SEs understand. The nuances get lost in this translation.
Bring on a search engine that will understand the natural language and people will start typing a different kind of queries.
Hi Sahar!
I think Google are well on top of these matters (dare I say it - maybe I am not seeing it all too :P), especially considering the level of data that they are ammasing on each individual (potentially the worlds best data set?), soon they will have you geotargetted via your phone and listening into God know’s what. What happens when ads are so targetted they have value? Advertisers subsidising mobiles China and India wide, not to mention the rest of the eastern and western worlds
Back to earth now… Re: your 5 points above, I think you can achieve this already with Google. If you cannot, Google need to educate more seo’s if the results are crap, or their algo in a knot, and needs an upgrade - lol. Or people need to start treating seo a lot more seriously
1. I want to know more about it - back relief information
2. Quick fix to get some relief for my back - fast back pain relief
3. What types there are and which one may I be experiencing - types of back pain
4. How to Cure - cure back pain
5. Who can help me - back pain help
Some simple keywords that can easily be expanded upon… Why not make assista use these words as internal links for nice indexing in Google
Long term would be good to see assista ranking well in the Google serps.
Also I should add that I have 100% faith in Google replicating, or datamining any source to the point they can provide a top 10 that covers all the content you would want to see.
The other side is the fact that you also need the content to catch up to the task, sometimes there simply isn’t enough content. Mapping out the world’s information one keyword at a time would be awefully hard.
Oh, and Hopefully I am 100% wrong!!
Hi Ben,
They cannot be on top of a system which they fundamentally don’t believe in. Their job is “top 10″, not personalization. Search though is about relevancy which is really about personal needs. While I do agree they collect allot of information I would sat compare to what MS “Stuff I’ve Seen” it is a fraction, and even MS could be better if they include more information such as speech, cameras, etc.
Cheers
Sahar