Facebook Top Search Term in 2009

Facebook Top Search Term in 2009

Social network search terms tops list for fourth straight year; Google top-visited Website for second straight year

New York, N.Y., Dec. 15, 2009 — Experian® Hitwise® has analyzed the top 300 search terms for 2009 and Facebook was the top-searched term overall. This is the first year that the social networking Website has been the top search term overall, accounting for 0.67 percent of all searches.¹ In fact, four variations of the term “facebook” were among the top 25 terms.

Facebook moved up from the 10th spot in 2008 to the top spot in 2009. MySpace was the second most-searched term in 2009, followed by Craigslist, YouTube and Yahoo Mail. Analysis of the search terms reveals that social networking–related terms dominated the results, accounting for 2.48 percent of the top 300 searches.

Adding up common search terms — e.g., facebook and facebook.com — Facebook terms accounted for 1.09 percent of all searches. MySpace terms accounted for 1.02 percent, Yahoo terms accounted for 0.95 percent, Google terms accounted for 0.63 percent, and Craigslist terms accounted for 0.62 percent.

Top-visited Websites in 2009
Google was the top-visited Website for the second straight year. Google accounted for 6.70 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2009. Yahoo! Mail accounted for 4.44 percent of visits, followed by Facebook (4.26 percent), Yahoo! (3.36 percent) and MySpace (3 percent).

Adding up common properties — e.g., yahoo.com and mail.yahoo.com — Yahoo! properties accounted for 10.60 percent of all U.S. visits. Google properties accounted for 9.93 percent, and Facebook properties accounted for 4.26 percent. The top 50 Websites accounted for 39 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2009.  

About Experian Hitwise
Experian Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Experian Hitwise gives marketers a competitive advantage by providing daily insights on how 25 million Internet users around the world interact with more than 1 million Websites. This external view helps companies grow and protect their businesses by identifying threats and opportunities as they develop. Experian Hitwise has more than 1,500 clients across numerous sectors, including financial services, media, travel and retail.

Experian Hitwise (FTS:EXPN), www.experianplc.com, operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and Brazil. More information about Experian Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up-to-date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Research Blog at www.ilovedata.com and Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.

About Experian
Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients in more than 65 countries. The company helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also helps individuals to check their credit report and credit score and protect against identity theft.

Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended March 31, 2009, was $3.9 billion. Experian employs approximately 15,000 people in 40 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; Costa Mesa, California; and São Paulo, Brazil.

For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com.

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¹Data is based on the top 300 unfiltered search terms and U.S. market share of visits for January to November 2009.

Contact:
Matt Tatham
Experian Hitwise
1 212 380 2939 Telephone