More Search Words Per Query

ZDNet Reports on Yahoo!'s analyst presentation. In particular, they reproduce slide 12 of the 188 [12.2MB PDF] slide show which presents an increase in the average number of words per query over the past few years. The slide gives the following:

• 1998: 1.2 words
• 2004: 2.5 words
• 2006: 3.3 words

That is a fairly substantial increase. The pie graph from 2005 HitWise data shows that roughly half the searches are 2 words or less and that the other half of searches are 3 or more.

The article also mentions that "Academic studies show user satisfaction also increases as search query length grows" and even links to the study that makes that claim. Of course, the longer the query grows the closer it will get to zero results, so that is only true to a point.