The definition of wilfing - to surf aimlessly around the web without any real purpose.
We have all read in the press recently about the new term - an acronym for "What was I looking for?" and the results of a YouGov survey (undertaken for Moneysupermarket.com) which suggest 70 per cent of us have succumbed at one time or another. But what does this mean for how we are using the internet and more importantly how should website design develop to discourage the Wilfer or at least retain interest for as long as possible?
To start with demographics: you are more like to wilf if you are under 25 - the over 55s are three times less likely to do so. Secondly - men are more prone to wilfing than women - and more worryingly a third of the men interviewed for the survey said wilfing had had a detrimental affect on their relationship with a partner.
The economic effect: the study showed that one in four users spend 30 per cent of their time jumping from one site to another - over the course of a month this equates to 2 working days. As British workers admit to surfing the web during office time, it is estimated that businesses are losing thousands of working days as a result.
The most popular destination for wilfers, as reported in Times Online and the Guardian: the shopping websites are favourite - closely followed by news, travel and music websites.
Web user behaviour is changing - we are less likely to trawl through search results to hone in on a particular site. It is easier to become distracted and lose sight of where we wanted to be. As a result we are turning away from undertaking our own product research and seek more reliance on customer reviews to make our purchases. Shopping websites often have a "customers who bought this also bought this..." to capture the user before they surf elsewhere.
Jason Lloyd from Moneysupermarket.com states "Our study shows that although people log on with a purpose, they are now being offered so much choice and online distraction that many forget what they are there for, and spend hours aimlessly Wilfing instead."
As we have discussed in previous articles, search engine optimisation is key to ensure your website's listing is as high up the page rankings as you can get it - not only are users being more specific about the key terms they are using in searches but users are not going to trawl through endless pages of results. Providing customer review data as well as a "if you like this, you may like this" could also prove beneficial and stop a user from moving onto the next site prematurely.
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