[mattmanser]

When do people sit there and do 50 different searches in a row? This is a strange stance to take.

[enneff]

When searching is fast, you're more inclined to refine your search terms, hence you do more searches. Seems a pretty straightforward concept.

[mattmanser]

No, I honestly don't see it.

After each search don't you actually open a few websites and see if they have the information you need?

There's no inherent value in refinement without inspection. The little snippets of text under each link are only 20-30 words long. They rarely convey anything of value.

Perhaps I'm looking at this wrong, but if people want to find out about the Nottingham food and drink festival do they start with 'Nottingham'. Then 'Nottingham Festival'. Then 'Nottingham Food and Drink Festival'? As that seems like an odd process to me.

Also, if you're not finding what you need by inspecting sites as you go, then Google isn't making any money as you're not clicking on any links.

So either tack you take on defending it, the opening comment still makes no sense.

[randallsquared]

The little snippets of text under each link are only 20-30 words long. They rarely convey anything of value.

My experience could not be more different. Probably half the searches I ever do on Google are complete without opening any of the links, because the answer I'm looking for is in the summary. Say I use Google only fifty times a day (many days it's more than that, but some days less). The vast majority of those searches are for trivial things that I would never have bothered to find out until after Google:

"What's a more businesslike word that kinda means flighty... oh, capricious, right."

"4.1 million rupiah? What's that in USD... ok, a little over 400 bucks."

"What's this error message from mysql|apache|PHP mean?"

"What's this error message from I-don't-know-what mean?"

Now that I think of it, the summary answers my immediate question well over half the time. You appear to make an argument that that's bad for Google.

[ido]

    After each search don't you actually open a few 
    websites and see if they have the information you need?

    There's no inherent value in refinement without 
    inspection. The little snippets of text under each 
    link are only 20-30 words long. They rarely convey 
    anything of value.

They are often very useful - I often use the description to determine if the search requires further refinement.