Information Foraging is one of the theories used in developing content on the Internet that deals with how a regular user looks for information over the internet. Information foraging theory stems from the foraging theory used to model animal behavior when looking for food. The aim of this model is to make the search for information in the Internet much more user friendly.

The Foraging Theory

The foraging theory was first proposed by ecologists and anthropologists during the 70s to explain foraging behavior and strategies by animals. It was proposed in this theory that animals are constantly evaluating the availability of food and the effort they would have to exert in order to gather or hunt it. For predators it may be the cost of obtaining food from another predator or the effort they would need to exert to catch a prey. For plant eaters, it may be the availability of food, the competition and the predator population. These factors supposedly determine whether the animal would stay in the area or move on to a more promising location.

During the rise in popularity of the Internet during the late 20th century, scientists have noticed some striking similarities between how animals behave when searching for food and how Internet users behave when looking for information on the web. With the help of several psychologists, these scientists have determined that links, lay-out, and data within sites indeed play a vital role in the decision of a internet user on whether it would stay on the site or move on.

The Information Foraging Theory

The information foraging theory states that Internet users, especially those who are actively seeking information, constantly seek to minimize the amount of energy they have to spend, the amount of time required, and the amount of thinking needed to acquire desired information. This optimizing behavior that is prevalent when a user is looking for information on the Internet determines whether the user will stay on the site, move on to other sites or stop the search altogether.

In the information foraging theory, the information required is the prey and the user is the predator. As long as the probability of finding the desired information is high and the situation is relatively close to the predicted outcome, the user will continue to actively seek within the site or will aggressively follow the trail of increasing relevant results. This is where links and references play a vital role as this will keep the user on a specific site.

The advent of better search engines capable of producing more relevant search results has changed the foraging behavior of information seekers. A high density of easily found, information-packed sites in search results encourages information foraging while scarcity of relevant sites encourages the user to stay within a single path. Moreover, the increase in Internet connection speeds has also encouraged the foraging behaviors of Internet users as they can easily jump from one site to another. These insights have helped a lot in areas such as web design, linking and SEO.