Researchers from the Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology and Queensland University of Technology have done a study on the classification of web searches.

An excerpt from TG Daily

Informational searching involves looking for a specific fact or topic, navigational searching seeks to locate a specific Web site and transactional searching looks for information related to buying a particular product or service.

The research was the first published work of its kind done using actual searching data, with the aim of real-time classification. Researchers analyzed more than 1.5 million queries from hundreds of thousands of search engines users. Findings showed that about 80 percent of queries are informational and about 10 percent each are for navigational and transactional purposes.

The results will perhaps help in providing technologists an insight into the kind of queries to base their focus on. The navigational and transactional queries are sure to peak once mobile internet and business over the net gathers more pace. The mobile revolution will have a big impact on how search evolves in future and perhaps the next big tech company will emerge from there.