Multitasking Web search on Alta Vista

A user´s single session with a Web search engine may consist of seeking information on single or multiple topics. Most Web search sessions consist of two queries of two words. We present findings from a study of two-query search sessions on the Alta Vista Web search engine to examine the degree of multitasking search by typical Web searchers. A sample of two-query length search sessions were filtered from Alta Vista transaction logs from 2003. Findings include: (1) 81% of two-query sessions were multitasking searches; and (2) there are a broad variety of search topics in multitasking search sessions. The implications of our findings for Web design and further research are discussed.