Web searching for sexual information: An exploratory study

Abstract

Sexuality on the Internet takes many forms and channels, including chat rooms discussions, accessing Websites or searching Web search engines for sexual materials. The study of Web sexual queries provides insight into sexual-related information-seeking behavior, of value to Web users and providers alike. We qualitatively analyzed 58,027 queries from a log of 1,025,910 Excite Web user queries from 1999. We found that sexual and non-sexual-related queries exhibited differences in session duration, query outcomes, and search term choices. Implications for sexual information seeking and Web systems are discussed.