New York, N.Y., May 7, 2009 —Hitwise®, an Experian company, announced today that Google accounted for 72.74 percent of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending April 25, 2009. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 16.27 percent, 5.68 percent and 3.95 percent, respectively. The remaining 49 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.36 percent of U.S. searches.
|
Percentage of U.S. searches among leading searchengine providers | ||||
|
Domain |
April 2008 |
March 2009 |
April 2009 |
Year-over-year percent change |
|
www.google.com |
67.93% |
72.39% |
72.74% |
7% |
|
search.yahoo.com |
20.29% |
16.36% |
16.27% |
-20% |
|
search.msn.com |
6.27%* |
5.50%* |
5.68%* |
-9% |
|
www.ask.com |
4.17% |
4.07% |
3.95% |
-5% |
|
Note: Data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending April 25, 2009; March 28, 2009; and April 26, 2008) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. | ||||
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*Includes executed searches on Live.com and MSN Search but does not include searches on Club.Live.com | ||||
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Source: Hitwise, an Experian company | ||||
Longer search queries become more popular
The length of search queries has increased over the past year. Longer search queries, averaging searches of five to more than eight words in length, have increased 7 percent between April 2008 and April 2009. Searches of eight or more words increased 18 percent. The same time period showed that shorter search queries — those averaging one to four words long — have decreased 2 percent. Searches of two words comprised the majority of searches, amounting to 22.95 percent of all queries.
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Percentage of U.S. clicks by number of keywords | ||||
|
Subject |
April 2008 |
March 2009 |
April 2009 |
Year-over-year percent change |
|
One word |
21.06% |
20.48% |
20.37% |
-3% |
|
Two words |
24.27% |
23.17% |
22.95% |
-5% |
|
Three words |
21.65% |
21.72% |
21.84% |
1% |
|
Four words |
14.57% |
14.97% |
15.04% |
3% |
|
Five words |
8.42% |
8.76% |
8.78% |
4% |
|
Six words |
4.52% |
4.73% |
4.76% |
5% |
|
Seven words |
2.38% |
2.58% |
2.58% |
8% |
|
Eight or more words |
3.12% |
3.60% |
3.68% |
18% |
|
Note: Data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending April 25, 2009; March 28, 2009; and April 26, 2008) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. | ||||
|
Source: Hitwise, an Experian company | ||||
Google is a greater source of traffic to key U.S. industries
Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories. Comparing April 2009 with April 2008, Business and Finance, Sports and Online Video categories showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.
|
U.S. category upstream traffic from search engines and Google — April 2009 | ||||
|
Category |
Percentage of category traffic from search engines — April 2009 |
Percent change in share of traffic from search engines — April 2008– April 2009 |
Percentage of category traffic from Google — April 2009 |
Percent change in share of traffic from Google — April 2008–April 2009 |
|
Health and Medical |
46.29% |
1% |
33.88% |
10% |
|
Travel |
36.82% |
8% |
27.91% |
20% |
|
Shopping and Classifieds |
24.04% |
-5% |
17.28% |
4% |
|
News and Media |
21.35% |
-2% |
15.48% |
6% |
|
Entertainment |
26.51% |
11% |
18.78% |
24% |
|
Business and Finance |
20.91% |
16% |
15.01% |
29% |
|
Sports |
14.93% |
20% |
10.88% |
30% |
|
Online Video** |
36.04% |
25% |
27.24% |
39% |
|
Social Networking** |
17.73% |
6% |
11.87% |
18% |
|
All figures are based on U.S. data from the Hitwise sample of 10 million Internet users. | ||||
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Source: Hitwise, an Experian company | ||||
About Hitwise
Hitwise, an Experian company, is the leading online competitive intelligence service. 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 Web sites. This external view helps companies grow and protect their businesses by identifying threats and opportunities as they develop. Hitwise has more than 1,500 clients across numerous sectors, including financial services, media, travel and retail.
Hitwise, an Experian company (FTS:EXPN), www.experianplc.com, operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada. More information about 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 the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.
Contact:
Matt Tatham
Hitwise, an Experian company
1 212 380 2939 Telephone