What’s in a name?
So only 1% of google searches use “advanced search”. Is this because the word “advanced” (especially in the world of IT) speaks of complexity and language that only people in the know understand. Anders Olausson suggests if it were labeled differently, “easy search” or “better search” (because that is what it actually is) more people would use it and the result would be more efficient searching. There’s a lesson here when labeling functionality and features. All to often the project team in development will refer to something by its technical name, and this will manifest itself on the user interface. Yet if these names are not those of the users language this will at best result in user annoyance, and at worst result in the feature being unused.
I think it’s because of the extra click. You could be able to make it your default?
Anyway, the search language for the one box is somehow more convenient for me. queries like:
site:dancingmango.com “advanced search” -yahoo etc.
I personally don’t use the advanced search because I don’t have to. I type into Google what I am looking for and Google gives me the results that I need.
I use the advanced search for when I am restricting by date, occasionally site, etc. In general I agree with Chris – google generally gives me what I want although I do advanced things like +require +these +words when I search from the main screen.