The hit-and-miss business of web search  

As Yahoo! struggles to improve its search offering and differentiate from the Jolly Google Giant, it recently announced Yahoo! Search Assist to help tackle the problem of failed searches.

In an October-12 post on the Yahoo! Search Blog, Larry Cornett and Tom Chi cite recent Yahoo!-sponsored research carried out by Harris Interactive, revealing that only 15% of people find what they're looking for with their first search. Typically, users need to carry out three to four searches to find the result they're looking for.

Hence, the search engineers conclude,

… making the engine smarter is only half of the equation. The other half of the search equation is making the query smarter -- and this was our focus in the design and development of Yahoo! Search Assist.

Improving search quality (aka 'web search fulfilment') is a key thrust of Yahoo! marketing. Other research has demonstrated that while Google consistently gets the lion's share of search volumes, Yahoo! leads the way in turning searches into clicks.