Shopping portals vie with Google for consumers` attention, study says

While Google Inc. takes the highest score in a recent online consumer satisfaction survey, its biggest competition for consumers may be from sites like Yahoo.com and Amazon.com instead of other search engines, according to this year’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, which is compiled annually by the University of Michigan in partnership with the American Society for Quality and CFI Group.

Google scored 82 in the 100-point ACSI customer satisfaction scale, leading all search engines. The search engine category itself scored the highest among three e-business categories measured by ACSI, with a score of 80, ahead of news/information sites, at 75, and portals, at 71.

Top 500 Guide

No other search engine scored nearly as high as Google, however, leaving the door open for competition from general web portals like MSN.com, Yahoo.com and AOL.com, and popular retail sites like Amazon.com, says Larry Freed, CEO of ForeSee Results, a company that uses ACSI methods to measure online customer satisfaction and one of two sponsors of the ASCI survey. Ask Jeeves was the second-ranked search engine, with a score of 71. Yahoo scored 78, MSN scored 75, and AOL scored 67.

"Google is a star performer in the search field, but other search engines are not its only competition," Freed says. "Google and other search engines likely face future competition for retail-driven search from companies like Amazon, an absolute customer satisfaction machine. It’s not always easy to keep people with you while you extend your brand. That Google has been able to do so is a testament to the brand’s value, though they have bigger hurdles ahead."

"The issue is not how many matches the search engine found for me in 2.4 seconds," Freed adds. "The issue is whether you can prioritize those matches. That is a big challenge. People have become comfortable with sponsored links, technology is better, and valuable content to connect people to businesses continues to grow -- that’s the good news. Patience with two million matches may run out -- that’s the bad news."