BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Google remains the "king" of all search engines, while following Yahoo and MSN are closing the gap, according to a survey of 2,000 consumers conducted by market researcher Keynote Systems. Ask Jeeves and Lycos are ranked 4th and 5th.

    Keynote ranked search engines based on consumer opinion and brand affinity, as well as on qualitative and behavioral data monitored as people performed tasks on these Web sites, according to Keynote.

    Google came in top of the heap across measurements for brand impact, customer satisfaction, loyalty, and future usage.

    "Google is the king of customer experience in the search engine industry, but Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves are improving," ECT News Network quoted Dr. Bonny Brown, director of research and public services for Keynote as saying.

    "Given the open nature of the Web, as these sites continue to improve the user experience, they will undoubtedly begin to attract more users and improve user loyalty. Obviously this will impact the advertising side of the business," Brown said.

    However, Yahoo and MSN have closed the gap. Keynote said Yahoo and MSN have improved since the last study published in May 2004. They added to their primary user base by 20 percent and 30 percent respectively. Yahoo boosted its customer experience with its launch of expanded local search tools and a new way of presenting search results. MSN benefited from a decision to separate sponsored results from those generated by Web search algorithms.

    Furthermore, the study reported that even though 75 percent of users say they have one primary search engine, when search expectations are not met as many as 50 percent of users will turn to another search engine as an alternative. Additionally, up to 20 percent of users regularly use different search engines for different types of searches.

    Keynote said consumers are currently frustrated by local search, with 22 percent saying that local search doesn't provide the results they're looking for or returns them in a way that is too cumbersome.

    (Agencies)¡¡