Good Abandonment on Search Results Pages
Source: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/good-abandonment/ — Nielsen Norman Group
Good abandonment is when the user’s need is fully satisfied by the results page itself — no click and no reformulation needed. As engines become answer engines (featured snippets, knowledge panels), a no-click session is often a success, not a failure.
Why It Matters for Metrics
- Treating all abandonment as failure misreads modern SERPs. ~35% of desktop and ~62% of mobile searches end without a click.
- This complicates click-based success metrics: a zero-click query can be a win (answer shown) or a loss (nothing relevant). Raw CTR can’t tell them apart.
- Argues for session- and intent-aware evaluation over click-only proxies — see Session-Based Evaluation.
The Risk Side
Good abandonment goes bad when extracted snippets lack context or are wrong: users (“satisficers” exhibiting “Google gullibility”) trust an incomplete answer and leave with the wrong information.
Named Concepts
- Satisficing · Information scent · Google gullibility
Related Concepts
- Search Evaluation — why click-only metrics mislead here
- Click Signals — zero-click sessions are ambiguous signal
- Session-Based Evaluation — intent/session framing captures good abandonment
- Zero Results — distinct failure: no answer at all
Publisher
- Nielsen Norman Group — UX research firm