Web search behavior of university students: a case study at University of the Punjab

The World Wide Web is now known to be the richest source of information. The growth rate of the web is exponential. This paper explores different aspects of web search behavior of university students, in terms of user's background and experience with web, purpose of use, searching skills, query formulation, frequency of use, favorite search engine, etc. All these factors contribute to the way in which the students search the web. Data have been collected from students of the Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences, University of the Punjab, Lahore through questionnaire. Key findings include the use of web for academic tasks, preference of Google, reformulation of query, use of basic and advance search features, browsing of first ten hits and problem of slow speed.