What is "findability"

n. 1 (context information science English) The quality of a particular object being locatable. 2 (context information science English) The quality of a whole system being navigable.

Findability is a term for the ease with which information contained on a website can be found, both from outside the website (using search engines and the like) and by users already on the website. Although findability has relevance outside the World Wide Web, the term is usually used in that context. Most relevant websites do not come up in the top results because designers and engineers do not cater to the way ranking algorithms work currently. Its importance can be determined from the first law of e-commerce, which states "If the user can’t find the product, the user can’t buy the product." As of December 2014, out of 10.3 billion monthly Google searches by Internet users in the United States, an estimated 78% are made to research products and services online.

Findability encompasses aspects of information architecture, user interface design, accessibility and search engine optimization (SEO), among others.