How do users browse large numbers of search results? From paging through results to considering different keywords

The two comments describe two approaches to handling large numbers of search results: displaying more results per page and taking time to work through them, or considering different keywords after browsing many pages without finding the information needed. These are only personal habits and guesses, however. They cannot establish how many pages most users view or when they stop, and the search settings mentioned should not be assumed to be current platform features.

Displaying more results on each page

piece2ec says they typically use advanced settings to display 100 search results per page, then work through them to find the information they need. They describe this browsing approach as “go through 10 pages and you reach the end of 1,000 results.” The point is not to skim results quickly, but to put more results on a single page and take time to browse them.

Two things need to be kept separate:

• The number of results per page tells us only how results are displayed; the comment reflects the settings and browsing habits that piece2ec describes.
• The number of pages browsed does not tell us how many results were read carefully; the commenter does not say whether they examined every result individually.

Page counts alone therefore cannot measure search depth. “10 pages, 1,000 results” does not tell us how much typical users read or mean that users need to browse that many results to find an answer.

Considering different keywords when nothing turns up

dfgfdg6568 says they start thinking about changing keywords after browsing twenty-something pages without finding the information they need. This only tells us that they consider adjusting their search—not that they always stop at the same page count or that changing keywords is certain to produce an answer.

They also speculate that people may generally find what they need within the first five pages and are very unlikely to reach page 100. However, they provide no statistics or explanation of how they observed this, so these guesses cannot establish a general rule that “users only look at the first five pages.” Their own browsing experience and their speculation about other users should not be given equal weight as evidence.

Useless pages add to the frustration

dfgfdg6568 believes that junk web pages make it harder for users to find information. For them, the problem is not just the number of pages to browse, but also the useless pages among the results. However, they do not define what counts as a junk web page or measure how these pages affect search time, so the comment cannot establish that they cause users to stop browsing.

These two comments illustrate several options: displaying more results per page, browsing page by page, and considering different keywords when nothing turns up. They do not establish which method is most effective, nor do they represent all users’ browsing habits.