Web Search

Among the most used top-ten Internet activities of Internet users, search engine usage holds position two after email usage (Fallows, 2008; PEW, 2009). More than sixty percent of U.S. Internet users are using search engines on an average day, compared to eighty percent of the users who are sending or receiving emails on a typical day. These activities are followed by looking for news and job-related research (Rainie and Shermak, 2005). Table 1.1 shows the complete list of activities combined with the proportion of U.S. Internet users. For many of these activities like getting news or job-related research, search engines are the starting point to enter the World Wide Web.