Telescope: Everything You Need to Know About Search

Welcome to this edition of Telescope on Search, our monthly newsletter devoted to search. Our goal is to offer a regular, quick-browse e-newsletter with useful information, tips, and news of the latest developments on Site Search, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, and site usability. If you have any feedback or questions please direct them to newsletter@sli-systems.com.

Feature: Search Results - Grid vs List View

Shaun Ryan
CEO, SLI Systems

Here at SLI Systems we continually try to improve our site search best practices. Recently we've been looking at various layout options to figure out which might generate the highest click-through rates. While there are many different formats that can be used for search results pages - the most common options are list view and grid view.

List View

List view is the most common format used for search results pages. It allows for only a small number of results per page but provides a significant amount of information on each result. This is the format used by Google and most other web search engines and provides a single item per row.

Example of List View on our client Fright Catalog

The list view provides screen space for including additional information about each product. In particular you can show thumbnail images, descriptive text, related information and "Add to Cart" buttons. The description of each product provides an opportunity to further entice the visitor to click on the result. Highlighting the search term provides a strong information scent indicating that the result is relevant for the given term. On the Fright Catalog site the search term is highlighted in red.

Grid View

The grid view is more compact, allowing more products above the fold and it is therefore easier to browse through a larger number of results. This format is commonly used where an initial selection can be made based solely on product images.

Example of Grid View on our client Fright Catalog

Click-Through Rates

Comparing the distribution of clicks between the two formats is interesting. The first chart below shows the number of clicks that occur at each rank when the results are ordered in a list view.

The information displayed in the following charts is from an anonymous client, but is representative of many sites.

As expected the top result gets the majority of clicks and this falls away fairly quickly. This particular client has 10 results per page. This is reflected in the chart in that the 11th result gets significantly less clicks than the 10th result - because most visitors don't visit the 2nd page of results.

You can also see that the 10th result gets about the same number of clicks as the 9th. This is because it is at the bottom of the page and easier to find than if it were the 10th result in a long list. For some sites the result at the bottom of the page gets more clicks than the result second from the bottom.

Contrast this with results that are shown in a grid view (in this case 3 rows of 4 results):

Here you can see that the number of clicks doesn't fall away as fast as they did in the list example above. Interestingly, when there are 4 results per row and the 5th result is the 1st item on the 2nd row it still gets less clicks than the 4th result which is at the end of the first row. We had initially considered that it may get more if a reasonable amount of people scanned the list vertically. However this supports the premise that the results are scanned from left to right.

Our customers are reasonably evenly split between showing results in grid and list views. Many of them allow the users to switch between the two. Our analysis indicates there is no significant difference in the conversion rates of the two formats.

So which should you use? The charts above summarize the activities of thousands of people. Our advice is to ask some of your site visitors and if possible test the alternatives. Personally, when I'm searching I prefer to have more information on the search results page because it makes it easier to make a decision without having to click through for more information. But, that's just me. What really matters is what your customers prefer.

SLI Systems & Customers in the News

Below are links to a recent news article highlighting our Learning Search service:

Searching for Shoppers - Get Elastic podcast #19 (featuring SLI’s Ed Hoffman) – Feb 1, 2007

Relevant Online Results – RIS News, Feb 1, 2007

SLI Systems and Edwin Watts Golf to Discuss Elements of Site Search Success at eTail 2007 "Search Day" – Feb 12, 2007

If you have any comments or suggestions for future issues please email us at newsletter@sli-systems.com.

Upcoming Events:

Search Engine Strategies New York
April 10 - 13, 2007
Boston, MA

ACCM
May 21 - 23, 2007
Boston, MA

Internet Retailer Conference
June 4 - 7, 2007
San Jose, CA

Important Links:

> Learning Search product page
> Free Feedback Tool
> SLI Systems Blog

If you have any comments or suggestions for future issues please email us at newsletter@sli-systems.com.

A $100 Exhibitor Client Discount on Internet Retailer 2007 Registration

As an exhibitor at Internet Retailer 2007 Conference & Exhibition SLI Systems is pleased to provide you with a $100 discount off the current registration fee.

If you use this offer to register by March 31, you obtain the normal $100 Early Bird Registration Discount Plus our special $100 Exhibitor Client Discount—a total saving of $200, or 22% off the standard two-day conference registration fee. The IRCE 2007 Show, will be held in San Jose, June 4-7 and is America's largest e-retailing conference.

To register click here and enter the following Exhibitor Client Code: EC7269. Your registration confirmation at the discounted price will be e-mailed to you immediately.

If you take advantage of this discount offer and stop by SLI Systems at booth #1300 at Internet Retailer 2007, we’ll give you a $25 Starbucks Gift Card on the spot as a special bonus.