what search data revealed about habits and online style

[Deviant Ollam]

after the mass release of the AOL user search data a lot of pattern studies came out. this article makes for a bit of fun reading on the subject. granted, it's published by a microsoft entity -- and the whole data set is based on AOL users -- so how much the results have to say about normal people is hard to judge. still, it's a pretty funny and revealing look at AOL-ers.

"the seven ways people search the web"

1. The Pornhound
2. The Manhunter
3. The Shopper
4. The Obsessive
5. The Omnivore
6. The Newbie
7. The Basket Case

read article for full details as to what those categories are.

[TheCotMan]

Re: what search data revealed about habits and online style

after the mass release of the AOL user search data a lot of pattern studies came out. this article

These two best describe me:
4. The Obsessive
5. The Omnivore

As described on the page, "The Obsessive," matches what I often do with google.

These kinds of revised searches seem to happen when the thing I want to find is a common word, and the words that describe it are also common. This can also happen when I am trying to build a very useful search query to publish as a published resource with many high quality hits on the first page of returned results.

This can also happen in certain browser/server configurations where no-caching is specified (or short caching) and pages get reloaded when a browser "back" is selected, instead of highlighting the text in the search string you want to remove and deleting/typing over it.

However, I probably spend more time as an Omnivore.

Deviant Ollam, which describe(s) you?

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: what search data revealed about habits and online style

Deviant Ollam, which describe(s) you?

definitely omnivore for me... i could barely imagine what my search histories would look like, since i use google for everything form search engine to spell checker (it's faster than loading up any other tool since mozilla is always running in the background on my systems)

i could see how some of us might appear like obsessives, however. that's not the case for me since i use tabbed browsing and religiously open my search results in new tabs. (heh, i can't be bothered with the two or three clicks and couple seconds of page load time to go back to a google search after viewing one result page and moving to the next. )

i have to say that some of the articles and studies which have been published about the data are simultaneously funny and scary in what they reveal about people. yes, it's all anonymous but it's become more and more clear that with the unique identifying number being constant, people can be tracked down one way or another. i wonder how user number 672368 would feel if her identity was revealed. she's the one whose searches over a period of several weeks went from "you're pregnant he doesn't want the baby" to "foods to eat when pregnant" to "abortion clinics charlotte nc" to "can christians be forgiven for abortion."

and -- i'm rather certain this is a joke -- but there's also the matter of user 16006693 who searched for, among other things...
oakrige boys
oakridge boys
oakridge boys downloads free
jokes about dick cheney
jokes about dick cheney but not george bush
where is iraq
where is lebenon
shiits
shee-ites
bush appruval
bush approvel
bush drops below
dead reporters
dead reporters fotos
dead reporters pix
disembowled reporters pix
disembowled new york times
bible quote of the day
insperation from bible
george bush great president
george w bush great president
stress
best place to retire
places like crawford but without cindy sheehan
crawford the town not cindy crawford
crawford tx
global warming mith
global warming myth
tex mex
tex mex not music
tex mex takeout
tex mex takeout dc
heart burn
heartburn

[theprez98]

Re: what search data revealed about habits and online style

I'm the Omnivore with a little bit of the Obsessive thrown in there.

i could barely imagine what my search histories would look like, since i use google for everything form search engine to spell checker (it's faster than loading up any other tool since mozilla is always running in the background on my systems)

I almost depend on Google as a spellchecker. I don't think about spelling words, I just type what I think is correct and am generally confident that Google will fix it for me. I even use Google as a calculator.

[jur1st]

Re: what search data revealed about habits and online style

I'm definitely an omnivore, though I tend to border on obsessive. I'm only that way when I'm working on a project. Is User 16006693 Carl from Aquateen Hunger Force?

[VAX_to_PBX]

Re: what search data revealed about habits and online style

Google Whores are probably updating there keyword's on a massive scale.

I'm the Newbie...

[Abby_Normal]

Re: what search data revealed about habits and online style

I'm the Omnivore with a little bit of the Obsessive thrown in there.


I almost depend on Google as a spellchecker. I don't think about spelling words, I just type what I think is correct and am generally confident that Google will fix it for me. I even use Google as a calculator.

I do too! With out google I'd never spell anything right!

[bascule]

Re: what search data revealed about habits and online style

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/wee...882014,00.html

I wonder how much Google is able to identify you by your search patterns. Perhaps doing so violates their privacy policy, but I think it'd be quite easy to follow people around based on how they search.