Is site search the new navigation? DMV.org, an ad-driven independent Web portal known as the “Unofficial Guide to the DMV,” certainly thinks so. We announced earlier this week that DMV.org is using Learning Search to improve site search and reduce reliance on navigational tools. “More and more people depend on search alone, so we plan to spend much less time building site navigation, and much more time on search and on providing interesting news and articles for our site visitors,” DMV.org’s Raj Lahoti told us.
DMV.org receives more than five million visitors a month, and about 20 percent of those visitors use site search to find information about DMV office locations and driver license requirements, or to download forms. With such heavy traffic, and with so much information to sort through, DMV.org needed fast search, with relevant results. They initially choose Google, but Google’s site search doesn’t have the “learning” feature that SLI offers, or the high level of customer care that a growing company like DMV.org needed. (Another case where we showed that site search isn’t Google’s sweet spot – see our previous announcement about Lighting by Gregory.)
For DMV.org, fast and relevant search is the key to keeping site visitors coming back again and again, and telling their friends about the service. That translates directly into increased ad revenue for the site.
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[…] search really the new navigation, as the CEO of DMV.org (an SLI customer) said last year? Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital seems […]