Query abandonment by search engine users is generally considered
to be a negative signal. In this paper, we explore the
concept of good abandonment. We define a good abandonment
as an abandoned query for which the user’s information
need was successfully addressed by the search results
page, with no need to click on a result or refine the query.
We present an analysis of abandoned internet search queries
across two modalities (PC and mobile) in three locales. The
goal is to approximate the prevalence of good abandonment,
and to identify types of information needs that may lead
to good abandonment, across different locales and modalities.
Our study has three key findings: First, queries potentially
indicating good abandonment make up a significant
portion of all abandoned queries. Second, the good abandonment
rate from mobile search is significantly higher than
that from PC search, across all locales tested. Third, classi-
fied by type of information need, the major classes of good
abandonment vary dramatically by both locale and modality.
Our findings imply that it is a mistake to uniformly
consider query abandonment as a negative signal. Further,
there is a potential opportunity for search engines to drive
additional good abandonment, especially for mobile search
users, by improving search features and result snippets.