Searching the Web and Domain Names

1. Methodology

This report includes results from 51 telephone interviews (see Appendix) conducted over a period of two days: 39 business to business companies and 12 consumers completed the interviews.

1.1 Job title of respondents

1.2 Areas of business in which respondents operate:

Business	Number of Respondents
Consumers	12
Accountants	5
Architects	5
Medical	4
Engineers	5
Financial Planners or Brokers	5
Health Organisations and Hospitals	4
Insurance Agents	5
Law Firms	3
Solicitors	3
Other	1

1.3 Company List

AM Services	Deppek Consultants Ltd
A. Blakeborough	Dhanda Insurance Services
A. McKain	Fiat Spares
Abwood Marine Ltd	Financial Trade Service – Tradex
Acorn Insurance & Financial	General Star International
Aina Khan Partnership ( Solicitors )	Institute of Occupational Medicine
Aintree Park Group Practice	Local Health Council – Paisley Scotland
Alan Johnson Partnership	Newspace Insurance Services Ltd
Alexander Douglas Moffat	Paul Trodden
Alexander Marley Gordon	Premersey Liverpool Ltd
Allcock & Grieves	Pritchard – Jeffs & Co.
Aluko Brooks	Salhan Nijjar
Andrew Finch	Silverdale Financial Service
Andrew John Pearson	The Lanes Dental Surgery
Bunday & Rogers	The Newcastle Nuffield Hospital
Bupa – Edinburgh Hospital	The Oaks Business Centre
Burdett Cleaver Partnership	Touchstone Financial Services
Clarke & Partner	Whitelaw Wells Ltd
Cripps, Harris and Hall	Winning McSporran
D & S Hartley

2. Searching the Web

2.1 Finding a site for the first time

When respondents are looking for a specific person or organisation for the first time 61% are ‘very’ likely to go straight to their favourite search engine, whilst 63% are ‘unlikely’ to try to find a specialised web portal or search engine.

In the following graph ranking is applied to give an overall result for each area, it is clear that the majority will go straight to their favourite search engine.

The following table highlights the methodology used by respondents when searching for a specific person or organisation for the first time.

	Very Likely	Likely	Unlikely
Do a keyword search from my web browser home page	35%	27%	37%
Look for an established directory listing in that area	16%	37%	47%
Type in variations of possible web site addresses until I hit the right one	24%	43%	33%
Go right to my favourite search engine	61%	27%	12%
Use the search command in the web browser	33%	33%	33%
Try to find a specialised web portal or search engine on that subject	20%	18%	63%

2.1.i Difference in search methodology between business to business and consumer respondents.

Business-to-business and consumers are both most likely to go straight to their favourite search engines to look for a specific person or organisation. The following graph indicates that consumers are only really ‘likely’ to use their search engines to find a specific entity. Whereas, as well as going straight to their favourite search engine, business-to-business respondents are ‘likely’ to use a search command in a web browser and conduct a keyword search from their browser homepage.

The biggest difference between the two is the use of variations of addresses, which business-to-business respondents are far more likely to do than consumers – perhaps due to a greater familiarity with the workings of the Internet.

2.2 Experience with search engines

Where search engines are utilised, at present there appears to be a high level of inaccuracy, as 56% of the respondents have to complete numerous search attempts to find a specific person or organisation. Only 2% of respondents could find the correct information that they searched for. This is despite the high propensity of respondents to search using such an engine.

2.3 Usefulness of a system that pre-filters websites and listings?

The option of a system which would pre-filter information for only certified sites proved to be a very popular idea, with 96% of the respondents believing it would be of some use. While a quarter of respondents believed it would be extremely useful. Only 4% did not see a use for such a system

3. Domain Names

3.1 Which professional categories should be found under .pro?

80% of the respondents felt that law firms should appear under the .pro suffix, whereas only 24% believed that health organisations and hospitals should appear in this category.

The following table and graph show which licensed professional services the respondents believe should appear under the “.pro” suffix:

Professional Category	Percentage of Respondents
Law firms	80%
Accountants	76%
Doctors	76%
Architects	65%
Solicitors	65%
Financial planners	55%
Insurance agents	49%
Engineers	43%
Health organisations	24%
Other	20%

Verbatims:

Computer analysts. Solictor, Business to Business	Personal. Architect, Business to Business
I really can’t say, I really like .com it’s a recognised suffix. Architect, Business to Business. Traditional professionals Partner, Business to Business Professional services Proprietor, Business to Business Estate agents. Proprietor, Consumer	Any organisation that has professional accreditation. Freelance, Consumer PLL comp. Accountant, Business to Business Bankers. Student, Consumer

The use of the word .pro aroused some amusement both among researches and respondents, ‘Don’t know, it sounds very vulgar.’ (Proprietor, Business to Business), due to its preponderance in the vernacular.[1]

3.1i The difference between business to business and consumer responses.

The profession which consumers felt most deserved to be placed under the .pro suffix is ‘Accountants’. Conversely the most popular choice for business to business respondents is ‘Law Firms’.

For both groups the most unpopular choice of organisation to appear under .pro is the ‘Health Organisations and Hospitals’.

More generally the consumers respondents believe more organisations should appear under the .pro suffix than the business-to-business respondents did.

3.2 The most appropriate way to authenticate that the individual or organisation listed as .pro is licensed to practice their profession:

62% of respondents feel that the most appropriate method of authenticating that a .pro individual or organisation is licensed to practice their profession is if the organisation or individual is an established professional association.

Only 4% of the respondents feel that the organisation being licensed by a government agency was sufficient to authenticate that the organisation is licensed to practice their profession.

Verbatims:

An independent organisation. Architect, Business to Business

Don’t know, variable for each category IT Officer, Business to Business

3.3 How comfortable respondents would be using a new system to search for a professional service:

92% of respondents claim that they would have some degree of comfort when using a new system to search for a licensed professional. Of this 92%, only 20% feel that they would be extremely comfortable using the new system.

Less than 10% of the respondents said that they would not feel at all comfortable using a new system to search for licensed professionals.

3.3.i Comparative comfort levels of the business to business and consumer respondents.

Both the business-to-business and the consumer respondents would mostly feel ‘very comfortable’ about using a new system to search for a professional service.

The entire consumer sample base claims that they would feel at least some degree of comfort about using this new service. Conversely, 10% of the business-to-business clients would feel ‘not at all comfortable’ about using this new service.

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[1] “.pro” = prostitute