Nielsen Norman GroupEvidence-Based User Experience Research, Training, and Consulting
Most users are unable to solve even halfway complicated problems with search. Better to redirect their efforts into more supportive user interfaces when possible.
What makes a website good will also give it a high SERP rank, but overly tricky search engine optimization can undermine the user experience.
Search engines extract too much of the Web's value, leaving too little for the websites that actually create the content. Liberation from search dependency is a strategic imperative for both websites and software vendors.
Search engine users click the results listings' top entry much more often than can be explained by relevancy ratings. Once again, people tend to stick to the defaults.
Users now have precise expectations for the behavior of search. Designs that invoke this mental model but work differently are confusing.
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The website is becoming a less prominent locus of experience as people use search engines to bring up answers to their current questions. How can sites cope with masses of freeloaders?
The easier it is to find places with good information, the less time users will spend visiting any individual website. This is one of many conclusions that follow from analyzing how people optimize their behavior in online information systems.
Search is the user's lifeline for mastering complex websites. The best designs offer a simple search box on the home page and play down advanced search and scoping.
Search is the primary interface to the Web for many users. Search should be global (not scoped to a subsite) and available from every page; booleans should be made intimidating since users usually use them wrong