• Searchers are frustrated from the start. If your visitor has already scanned a page"maybe even tried a few links"and has not found anything, some frustration may have already begun to set in. People want what they want now"their patience ebbs a little more each year. Understand that the average person trying a search may already be a bit more negative than when they arrived at your site a minute earlier.

• Searchers are looking for harder-to-find information. Your Web site is designed around the information people need the most. Most of your information fits into certain themes, such as the product lines you sell. You tend to have a lot of pages with that product information, and its relatively easy for your search facility to find. But people usually dont need to resort to search for that information"its already well-linked in your navigation. No, people use search for the stuff that is harder to find. So search has a tougher job than navigation.

• The information needed may not exist. A special case of harder-to-find information is impossible-to-find information"your site simply may not have the answer to this searchers question. Because search allows an open-ended interaction where folks can type in anything, it foments frustration because nothing can deliver on that big an implied promise: Type in anything and well find it.

• Search is blamed for other failings. If your search facility is universally reviled, it may have become a scapegoat for larger problems on the site, such as poor navigation or missing content. People tend to demonize the last thing they used before they give up, so search gets more blame than it deserves.