New York, N.Y., Feb. 24, 2009 —Hitwise®, an Experian company, announced today that Google accounted for 72.09 percent of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending Jan. 31, 2009. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 17.81 percent, 5.44 percent and 3.31 percent, respectively. The remaining 44 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.35 percent of U.S. searches.
|
Percentage of U.S. searches among leading search engine providers | ||||
|
Domain |
January 2008 |
December 2008 |
January 2009 |
Year-over-year percent change |
|
www.google.com |
66.01% |
72.07% |
72.09% |
9% |
|
search.yahoo.com |
20.95% |
17.79% |
17.81% |
-15% |
|
search.msn.com |
6.91%* |
5.56%* |
5.44%* |
-21% |
|
www.ask.com |
4.21% |
3.15% |
3.31% |
-21% |
|
Note: Data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending Jan. 31, 2009; Dec. 27, 2008; and Jan. 26, 2008) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. | ||||
|
*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 becoming more popular
The length of search queries has increased over the past year. Longer search queries, averaging searches of 5+ words in length, have increased 10 percent comparing January 2009 to January 2008. The same time period showed that shorter search queries, averaging those 1 to 4 words in length, have decreased 2 percent.
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Percentage of U.S. clicks by number of keywords | ||||
|
Subject |
Jan-08 |
Dec-08 |
Jan-09 |
Year-over-year percent change |
|
1 word |
20.96% |
20.70% |
20.29% |
-3% |
|
2 words |
24.91% |
24.13% |
23.65% |
-5% |
|
3 words |
22.03% |
21.94% |
21.92% |
0% |
|
4 words |
14.54% |
14.67% |
14.89% |
2% |
|
5 words |
8.20% |
8.37% |
8.68% |
6% |
|
6 words |
4.32% |
4.47% |
4.65% |
8% |
|
7 words |
2.23% |
2.40% |
2.49% |
12% |
|
8+ words |
2.81% |
3.31% |
3.43% |
22% |
|
Note: Data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending Jan. 31, 2009; Dec. 27, 2008; and Jan. 26, 2008) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. | ||||
|
Source: Hitwise, an Experian company | ||||
Google 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 January 2009 with January 2008, Business and Finance, Sports, Online Video and Social Networking 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 — January 2009 | ||||
|
Category |
Percentage of category traffic from search engines — January 2009 |
Percent change in share of traffic from search engines — January 2009–January 2008 |
Percentage of category traffic from Google — January 2009 |
Percent change in share of traffic from Google — January 2009– January 2008 |
|
Health and Medical |
44.76% |
1% |
31.91% |
11% |
|
Travel |
36.29% |
9% |
27.09% |
21% |
|
Shopping and Classifieds |
24.97% |
-2% |
18.36% |
9% |
|
News and Media |
21.25% |
-3% |
15.46% |
11% |
|
Entertainment |
25.85% |
7% |
17.26% |
21% |
|
Business and Finance |
20.03% |
13% |
13.47% |
28% |
|
Sports |
15.59% |
16% |
9.56% |
29% |
|
Online Video** |
34.16% |
23% |
24.70% |
42% |
|
Social Networking** |
17.54% |
18% |
11.89% |
38% |
|
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. Only Hitwise provides its 1,500 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive Web sites and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.
Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy-to-use, Web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.
Hitwise, an Experian company (FTS:EXPN), www.experianplc.com, operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.
For up-to-date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence — Analyst Weblogs at http://weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at http://www.hitwise.com/datacenter.
Contact:
Matt Tatham
Hitwise, an Experian company
1 212 380 2939 Telephone