Are people biased in their use of search engines?

Abstract

Search-engines are among the most used resources on the Internet. Google, for example, now hosts over eight billion items and returns answers to queries in a fraction of a second, thus realising some of the more far-fetched predictions envisioned by the pioneers of the World Web Web. In the present study, we assess whether people are biased in their use of a search-engine; specifically, whether they are biased in clicking on those items that are presented as being the most relevant in the search engine’s result list (i.e., those items listed at the top of the result list). To test this bias hypothesis, we simulated the Google environment systematically reversing Google’s normal relevance-ordering of the items presented to users. Our results show that people do manifest some bias, favoring items at the top of result lists, though they also sometimes seek out high-relevance items listed further down a list. Later, we discuss whether this bias arises from people’s implicit trust in a search engine, like Google, or some other effect.