Frequency of Update
Sites which are updated very often are more in need of searching -- visitors can't be sure what is available. Sites updated hourly and daily are more likely to have search engines than those updated monthly or less often. However, the more frequently the site changes, the more difficult it is to keep the search index up-to-date: perhaps that's why many sites updated daily and even hourly do not have search engines installed.
Since our previous survey in July 2001, we've seen a significant decrease in the percentage of hourly-update sites that have search, from 50% to 43%, although the other ratios remain the same. We attribute that to more sites updating hourly, using weblogs, syndication, content management, automated inventory updates, and other techniques.
frequency without search with search Hourly 76 62 Daily 328 256 Weekly 375 161 Monthly 193 54 Rarely 88 16
