How Google Does It – With Speed
One of my favourite takeaways from the Web 2.0 Summit was Marissa’s presentation about something she learned working at Google. She ran a survey and Google users told her they wanted 30 results in the Google search results page. She delivered thirty results in the results pages and then watched as users ran from Google faster than she could say, “What happened?”
At first she did not know why they left. In time she came to realize page load times – an extra half second to download the extra HTML required to display 30 results – was what drove people away. So, in a word, slowness drove them away. Looking at things from the other direction, the results indicated that speed keeps users coming back to Google.
To explain the significance of this, I created some graphics (which are NOT based on data):
See the difference in approach? Yahoo! tries to get you to stay as long as they can get you to stay on Yahoo! properties. Google wants you to visit and leave their site as quickly as possible, the idea being that the positive experience you have with Google will keep you coming back more frequently (i.e. you do more searches). And guess what? Every time you return Google gets another chance to monetize you…and Google monetizes about 30% of the searches people make. Impressed? I was. Thanks for sharing Marissa.
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5:14 pm
I agree with you Mike, and that is why I use Google for email, personal start page, calendar, docs/spreadsheets, RSS reader, groups, and search. Not necessarily the most full featured in any one area, but definitely reliably fast and faster than the competition in a lot of cases.
1:53 am
Google wasn’t the first to offer such a simple design with the goal of fast results for the end user. This is only one piece of the puzzle. G has that as well as the most relevant search index, at least until recently. The other search players are definitely catching up to and may possibly surpass Google in the relevance department in the near future.
Microsoft seems to have taken notice regarding the simple design & fast user experience. http://www.live.com
4:58 am
[...] Google monetizes about 30% of the searches people make, I didnt know that. Freshbooks has a nice short post on how google’s loading times are how they beat the competition. But 30%? thats a lot more interesting! How Google Does It – With Speed [...]
3:29 pm
[...] I am due to do a write up of my adventures at the Web 2.0 Summit. That is on the way soon, as well as a post about StartUp Camp. In the meantime, I wanted to share something you may have seen on the FreshBooks blog: “One of my favourite takeaways from the Web 2.0 Summit was Marissa’s presentation about something she learned working at Google. She ran a survey and Google users told her they wanted 30 results in the Google search results page. She delivered thirty results in the results pages and then watched as users ran from Google faster than she could say, “What happened?” [...]
10:56 am
[...] I am due to write up my adventures at the Web 2.0 Summit. That is on the way very soon, as well as a post about StartUp Camp. In the meantime, I wanted to share something you may have seen on the FreshBooks blog: [...]