Multilingual Search User Behaviors - Exploring Multilingual Querying and Result Selection Through Crowdsourcing

The unprecedented increase in online search user diversity across the globe has led to new challenges for search engine providers. In particular, among these challenges is the need to better support individuals who are proficient in multiple languages. To investigate this particular user characteristic, this paper presents an analysis of multilingual search user behaviors through a series of large-scale studies using crowdsourcing. Results show that multilingual users make significant use of each of their languages when searching, and that there are significant differences in behaviors between querying and result selection. In addition, results show that language use strongly depends on a number of task factors and individual user characteristics. These results are discussed in terms of building novel adaptive multilingual search solutions that better support and adapt to users who have multiple language abilities.