That's interesting.

I just tried 'Googling' something random, looked outside (for inspiration) and chose a type of plant (I hope that's vague enough). Only two results on the page were relevant, the rest were commercial links. I'd have been clicking the 'very dissatisfied' if I'd been asked.

I'm not sure how valuable the responses would be. People who search on Google only would not have anything better to compare it to.

When I really want to search for something, Google is the last place I visit. Host crowding killed my ability to see a variety of different websites. You have to dig back quite a few pages in Google to actually find something that is different then the names 99% of us already know of.

I'm not sure how valuable the responses would be. People who search on Google only would not have anything better to compare it to.

But searchers aren't being asked to compare. They're merely being asked if they're satisfied with the current results.

Maybe theyre not asking people to rate the serps, as such, but rather the sites within the serps.
I suppose they could use it as a ranking signal. If people don't like the serps then the websites must be rubbish

Strangely I don't ever see this... is it something I said :)

If people don't like the serps then the websites must be rubbish

Or it could just mean that the sites don't have any relevant information about the topic. Google had to de-emphasize relevance because it was an obstacle to their goal of getting big brands and big organizations to the top of the results.

Strangely I don't ever see this...

I've only seen it once (today), Might be a very limited test.

aristotle, feel free to share a screenshot if you're comfortable sharing the query, I'll put it into the OP. It'd be interesting to see whether it is query specific or an A/B type thing depending on the visitor/location/google TLD.

I'm fairly sure I've saw this before a few months back. With all that goes on it can be hard to tell when something is new.

This is not new and it has been first spotted couple of years ago:

Google Asks Searchers: “How Satisfied Are You With These Results?”
22nd of June 2012
http://searchengineland.com/google-asks-searchers-how-satisfied-are-you-with-these-results-125696
[searchengineland.com]

I have also seen it for some queries, but cannot remember which ones. I vaguelly remember there were not commercial queries. What we do not know is whether this is prompted now more often now or not. It would be interesting to track which type of queries result in this question.

brotherhood of LAN -- Unfortunately I didn't take a screen shot, but just impulsively killed the page.

I just repeated the same search this morning but the survey box wasn't there this time, possibly because there was an ad above the organic results. I've also done this same search dozens of times in the past because one of my websites ranks for the term, but never saw the survey box until yesterday. I don't want to reveal the search term here because it relates to a controversial issue.

aakk9999 -- Thanks for that information. I had no idea that Google has been doing this for at least two years. But they must do it very infrequently since we so seldom see it.

I've seen this from time to time. I seem to recall the ratings had little faces next to them to indicate satisfaction levels visually?