Americans are more satisfied with Google search than they were a year ago, according to the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Search and Social Media Survey 2024.
Why we care. Many search marketers and news publishers have complained that various aspects of Google Search have gotten worse in recent years, especially over the past few years (for example, with various algorithm updates and the advent of AI Overview), but surprisingly (shockingly?) the survey found that perceptions of Google among the general public have not changed.
Improving Google user satisfaction. Google remains the top search engine. Its ACSI score increased from 80 to 81 in 2023.
2002-2023. Google’s ACSI scores change from year to year.
- Google’s highest price 86 2008 and 2009.
- Google’s worst 752022.
Other search engines. Overall, search engine satisfaction remained the same as last year, with an ASCI score of 80.
- DuckDuckGo’s score (79) remains unchanged from last year.
- Microsoft Bing’s score increased from 75 to 77, while Yahoo rose from 74 to 76.
but. Another study stated that Americans are frustrated that they are spending more time searching for services online than they did five years ago: Drilling down into the survey, 54% of people are looking through more search results now than they did five years ago.
Concerns about the social advertising experience. According to ACSI, advertising was the “worst part” of customer experience on social media platforms (based on four areas: the ability to use the site without ad interruptions, the balance of advertising and non-ad content, the trustworthiness of advertising, and the personal relevance of the ads shown).
- “Respondents rate their encounters with ads on social media platforms as the worst part of their customer experience, with new ACSI benchmarks on the authenticity and personal relevance of ad content particularly emerging as a concern for users.”
Increased social media satisfaction. Overall, satisfaction with social media improved to 74, the third consecutive year of improvement. Here are some interesting takeaways from the survey:
- TikTok came in first in the industry with a satisfaction score of 78, beating YouTube (77).
- Meta’s Facebook and Instagram both saw a three-point increase in user satisfaction.
About the survey. ACSI describes itself as “a national economic index of customer ratings of the quality of products and services available to U.S. residential consumers.” The results are based on 8,940 surveys completed by randomly selected customers contacted via email between July 2023 and June 2024.
The study considered several “experience benchmarks” including:
- Ease of navigation
- Site usability across devices
- A wide range of services and information.
- Freshness of content
- Amount of ads on the site
