In the age of digitalisation, users are opting for innovative and efficient ways to find out answers to their queries. The recent development in technology has made the whole scenario of searching for information much easier and more convenient for users. The introduction of innovative search tools has allowed users to get their hands on the latest information within the blink of an eye.
Despite the fact that modern and latest voice search tools are making their mark on the market, there are several factors that make traditional search tools a preferred choice among regular search users - we’re talking about the good old Google.
Although numerous apps, such as Siri and Cortana have already made a mark in the history of technology, their capabilities are far from those of traditional search.
Hence, to give you an insight as to why voice search is still far from replacing traditional search, here are the five main reasons.
Clear-cut wording is still required
Despite the fact that traditional searches require some sort of precision while searching for information, voice search technology ‘demands’ an accurately structured question in order to provide you with a satisfying answer, making it an exhausting task if your query goes beyond the typical ‘How old is Barack Obama’.
However, as search engines are still incapable of hosting all of the information in the world, the vast majority of voice queries are being pulled up from traditional sources - articles. With the introduction of voice search, developers are now beginning to focus on accuracy and relevance of the information, thus increasing chances of their content being picked up by the ‘voice’ engines.
Never dying ranking factors
There are over 200 ranking factors that come into play when it comes to prioritising one piece of content over the other. Some of these factors include the quality of the content, website authority, technical set-up and even the speed of the site.
Google and other search engines have spent decades crafting and adjusting their algorithms to provide the best possible result for the user. Hence, a voice ‘engine’ on its own is very far from being able to determine and process all of these factors to give an instant answer to the searcher. Thus, it still has to ‘communicate’ with the ‘traditional’ algorithm before providing the answer. Hence, this means that traditional search is still pretty much the foundation of any search query.
A variety of information
Traditional searches generate dozens of sources for the particular type of information, thus giving the user a choice to select one that looks more appealing. For instance, when you search for the term “Technology”, you will be given around 4.5 billion results consisted of personal blogs, news, developing stories, social media accounts, forum discussions and so much more.
Whereas if you voice search ‘Technology’, you will be given a single result (usually to a Wikipedia page or a vague definition).
Thus, the variety of sources allows users to select the most relevant piece of information, and move to the next one if they don’t find it reliable.
Advanced search options
Unlike voice search, traditional searches allow users to filter results by flipping the advanced search options.
The advanced search options allow users to refine and search for the information based on a publishing date, country, type and more.
However, with voice search, it’s practically impossible (or very challenging) to refine the search query and be sure that the content has been filtered correctly.
Precision
Traditional search allows users to be more precise and accurate when searching for results. For instance, putting quotation marks around the set of words will bring up search results that contain an exact phrase you’ve searched for. As there are dozens of search operators, making it work for voice search the same way it works with traditional search is almost unachievable (unless you’re willing to learn all search operators by name).
Source: This article was published bdaily.co.uk By Dev Sharma
