MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – July 13, 2000 – Google Inc. was selected as the No. 1 search and portal site in the Scorecard for the Search & Portal Site Tracking Study conducted by leading independent research company NPD New Media Services. Google, which was recently selected as the default search provider for Yahoo! and released a 1 billion URL index, placed first overall among surveyed search and portal sites for user satisfaction and loyalty in the Scorecard for the third quarter in a row.
The study, conducted during Quarter 2 of 2000 by NPD New Media Services, a division of The NPD Group, measured consumer opinions and loyalty to leading search services, including AltaVista, AOL.com, Ask Jeeves, Excite, GO Network, Google, GoTo, HotBot, iWon, Lycos, MSN, Netscape, WebCrawler and Yahoo!. Each sites’ visitors were asked to evaluate that site across a number of loyalty and satisfaction categories.
Google led all sites with 98 percent of its users identifying Google as much or somewhat better than other sites and 97 percent of its users finding what they are searching for all or most of the time. Additionally, seven in 10 Google users choose Google because it delivers the best search results. Among the 14 search and portal sites in the survey, Google placed first in the majority of loyalty and satisfaction Scorecard categories . The clear choice of Google by its users, combined with Google’s recent business and technology successes, is another milestone for the company, one of the fastest growing search engines in Web history.
"These results are yet another terrific validation of Google’s business strategy," said Larry Page, CEO and co-founder of Google. "Our decision to focus solely on providing users with the best search experience has made us an indispensable tool for millions. We are building a successful company on this foundation."
Google was rated first in the following categories:
- No. 1 Overall Opinion of Site: 97 percent of users rated Google as excellent or very good.
- No. 1 Site Recommended to a Friend: 94 percent indicated that they would recommend Google to a friend.
- No. 1 in Comparison vs. Other Sites: 98 percent rated Google either much or somewhat better than other sites.
- No. 1 in Frequency of Delivering the Information Sought: 97 percent of users surveyed reported that Google found the relevant information every time or most of the time.
- No. 1 for Relevant and Accurate Search Results
- No. 1 for Meeting the Needs of Users
- No. 1 for Comprehensive Results
- No. 1 for Delivering Value
- No. 1 in Use for Business Reasons
- No. 1 for Ease of Use and Navigation
- No. 1 in Share of Future Visits
- No. 1 for Site Reliability
- No. 1 for Speed in Loading
"The measurement that means the most to us is that 94 percent of our users would recommend Google to a friend," said Google president and cofounder, Sergey Brin. "The devotion inspired by our technology and service means that companies like Yahoo! and Cisco know that Google adds value for their customers."
About the Study
The NPD Search & Portal Site Tracking Study was fielded during Quarter 2 2000 using the NPD Online Research SiteSelect® methodology, which selects a randomized sample of visitors to a client’s web site and invites them to complete a survey through an ad banner invitation. For this study, ad banners were placed in general rotation on each of the participating sites. A total of 27,146 site visitors completed the survey.
About The NPD Group
The NPD Group is an international marketing information company headquartered in Port Washington, NY. Founded in 1953, the firm specializes in providing marketing information and associated computer software-based information management systems. NPD is the ninth largest market research firm in the U.S. based upon 1998 revenues, according to the American Marketing Association’s Honomichl 50. NPD New Media Services is a division of the NPD Group, which uses World Wide Web-based technologies to conduct and deliver market research and analysis. In addition to SiteSelect, NPD New Media Services also offers the NPD Online Panel, a pre-recruited sample of Internet representative individuals for conducting market research on the Web. For more information visit the NPD Group Web site at www.npd.com.
About Google
Google Inc. provides the best Internet search experience, and accomplishes this for tens of millions of users daily by delivering a powerful, fast, and easy-to-use search service for finding the most relevant information. Google’s technological innovations have powered the company to numerous awards, including Best Search Engine on the Internet from Yahoo! Internet Life; Top Ten Best Cybertech of 1999 by TIME magazine; Technical Excellence Award from PC Magazine; and this year’s Webby Award for Best Technical Achievement.
Google offers free search services through its own destination web site at www.google.com, as well as co-branded search solutions for 80 of the Internet’s premier information content and portal developers in more than 20 countries. Customers who rely on Google include Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO), AOL/Netscape’s Netcenter (NYSE: AOL), Redhat.com (NASDAQ: RHAT) and Washingtonpost.com (NYSE: WPO). A privately held company based in Mountain View, Calif., Google was founded by Stanford doctoral students Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998. Investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital, and partners John Doerr and Michael Moritz serve on the Google board with Ram Shriram, former executive at Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Netscape. For more information about Google, visit www.google.com.
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