New York, N.Y., Oct. 6, 2009 - Experian® Hitwise® announced today that Google accounted for 71.08 percent of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending Oct. 3, 2009. Yahoo! Search, Bing and Ask.com received 16.38 percent, 8.96 percent and 2.56 percent, respectively. The remaining 52 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.04 percent of U.S. searches.
Longer searches increase this past month
Longer search queries, averaging searches of five to more than eight words in length, increased 2 percent between August and September 2009. Searches of eight or more words increased 6 percent. The same time period showed that shorter search queries - those averaging one to four words long - were flat from month to month. Searches of one word comprised the majority of searches, amounting to 24.32 percent of all queries.
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Percentage of U.S. clicks by number of keywords |
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|
Subject |
August 2009 |
September 2009 |
Month-over-month percent change |
|
One word |
24.21% |
24.32% |
0% |
|
Two words |
23.71% |
23.55% |
-1% |
|
Three words |
20.74% |
20.52% |
-1% |
|
Four words |
13.78% |
13.69% |
-1% |
|
Five words |
7.90% |
7.94% |
1% |
|
Six words |
4.23% |
4.30% |
2% |
|
Seven words |
2.27% |
2.33% |
3% |
|
Eight or more words |
3.16% |
3.35% |
6% |
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Note: Data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending Oct. 3, 2009, and Aug. 29, 2009) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. |
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Source: Experian Hitwise |
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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 September 2009 with September 2008, Automotive, Business and Finance, Entertainment, News and Media, Online Video and Sports categories showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.
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U.S. category upstream traffic from search engines and Google - September 2009 |
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Category |
Percentage of category traffic from search engines - September 2009 |
Percent change in share of traffic from search engines - September 2008 - September 2009 |
Percentage of category traffic from Google - September 2009 |
Percent change in share of traffic from Google - September 2008- September 2009 |
|
Automotive |
30.30% |
17% |
21.38% |
18% |
|
Business and Finance |
22.06% |
18% |
15.75% |
22% |
|
Entertainment |
27.56% |
21% |
18.76% |
22% |
|
Health and Medical |
43.45% |
-3% |
31.38% |
-1% |
|
News and Media |
24.32% |
19% |
16.57% |
14% |
|
Online Video** |
35.36% |
12% |
25.35% |
10% |
|
Shopping and Classifieds |
26.54% |
6% |
18.69% |
7% |
|
Social Networking** |
19.73% |
13% |
13.53% |
18% |
|
Sports |
15.84% |
39% |
11.16% |
40% |
|
Travel |
38.38% |
8% |
28.99% |
12% |
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Note: All figures are based on U.S. data from the Hitwise sample of 10 million Internet users. **Denotes a custom category |
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Source: Experian Hitwise |
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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 Web sites. 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 and Hitwise Data Center.
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.