How important are user-generated data for search result quality? Experimental evidence

Tobias Klein, Madina Kurmangaliyeva, Jens Prüfer and Patricia Prufer ()
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Madina Kurmangaliyeva: ECARES, Universite Libre de Bruxelles

No 2022-07, University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series from School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Abstract: Do some search engines produce better search results because their algorithm is better, or because they have access to more data from past searches? In the latter case, mandatory data sharing, a policy that is currently discussed, could trigger innovation and would benefit all users of search engines. We document that the algorithm of a small search engine can produce non-personalized results that are of similar quality than Googles, if it has enough data, and that overall differences in the quality of search results are explained by searches for less popular search terms. This is confirmed by results from an experiment, in which we keep the algorithm of the search engine fixed and vary the amount of data it uses as an input.

Date: 2022-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-reg
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