Jacob Nielsen does it again. Search engines are bad, bad, bad. The new alertbox Search Engines as Leeches on the Web seems to target search engines as direct competition of webdesingers, IAs and usability engineers.
Companies tend to spend more money on search engine advertisements then on designing optimal paths and user friendly interfaces, so it looks like search engines are winning the race. Probably because the click through rate is easier to measure.
I really think both situations: browsing and searching should come together on the web. We can’t use the web just searching, which is in its own way a form of browsing.
The real goal is to make users come back, and to have them come directly to your site instead of clicking on expensive ads. The ideas above are just a few ways to encourage repeat business. Further in-depth studies of user behaviors and customer needs should reveal many new ways of keeping users loyal.
Jacob Nielsen
It is true that website designers need to take good care of information scent and labeling. That is one thing. But blaming search engines for not taking care, that is easy.
Besides, if I look at what Google is doing, they are doing a very good job in providing “scent”.
And! I am also a very loyal customer of google.
So maybe we should learn from the search engines about browsing?