Do search terms matter for online consumers? The interplay between search engine query specification and topical organization

The Internet has become the primary source of information for a large number of consumers. Thus, search engines as the mediators between consumers and online information is an increasingly important topic of research. The present study contributes specifically to the research in consumer search and decision-making by investigating how a search engine's support for topical organization of search results can help improve search performance. Search term formulation is an integral part of the online search process that consumers conduct. Past research shows that the actual search terms used in search queries do matter for improving search performance and also that users often mis-specify search terms, thereby reducing the efficacy of their online search and decision-making. The results of our experimental study offer evidence that topical organization using clustering support, which is provided by some search engines, helps increase relevance and usefulness of search results. The strongest performance improvements were achieved when clustering support was used in combination with terms that were under-specified. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.