The Seven Deadly Sins of Site Search - Sin #5
Deadly Sin #5: Egoism
This one needs a bit of an upfront definition. Egoism is a philosophy about making personal welfare and interests your primary concern, sometimes at the expense of others. Companies can be guilty of this as well as individuals.
We can see examples of egoism in site search implementations where the company asks far too much from a site visitor who wants to search, as in the following example from the Cadillac website.
First, in order to search the Cadillac website, you have to hunt for the search function that is hidden on the bottom left of the home page (circled in red):
Follow this link to see the hard-to-find search functionality on the home page in real-time.
Then after clicking on the search link, this is what appeared: a detailed list of instructions on how to conduct Boolean searches:
It’s as if this page was taken directly from a 1992 university library terminal when the concept of electronic search was brand-new. Visitors shouldn’t have to step into the Wayback Machine or read a manual in order to perform a search on a corporate website. If your search engine requires special syntax in order to function properly, it’s time to look at upgrading to a more modern, user-friendly search solution.
Tags: boolean searches, search engine, site search, special syntax
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