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Automotive Classifieds Shift Into Top Gear

The recent Formula 1 Motorsport carnival gives Hitwise cause to examine the online activity of the Automotive segment in some detail. Over the last 14 months Australian web traffic to 'Automotive' websites has increased its market share by 50%. Much of this can be attributed to the growth of the 'Automotive - Classifieds' category which has grown by 110% over the same period when charted using weekly data.

The current top ranking website within both categories is www.carsales.com.au. The latest available data indicates CarSales.com.au has captured one quarter of Australian Internet traffic to 'Automotive - Classifieds' sites and seven percent of traffic to sites in the 'Automotive' category. In second place is the Sensis web property www.autotrader.com.au, which accounts for approximately 5% of traffic to 'Automotive' and 15% to 'Automotive - Classifieds'. Similar websites such as those produced by ninemsn, News Limited and Fairfax Digital round out the top 5, who when combined account for a further 10% of 'Automotive' traffic and 35% of 'Automotive - Classifieds' traffic.

The most popular search term used to deliver users to 'Automotive - Classifieds' websites was 'trading post', used by 2.63% of users based on a rolling 12 week average for the week ending February 5. Generic terms that appear in the top 10 searches include 'used cars', 'cars' and 'cars for sale'. The average session time at websites of this nature is 8 minutes and 28 seconds, more than a minute longer than the average user session across 'All Categories'.

In other automotive news, www.holden.com.au and www.ford.com.au continue to dominate as the most popular 'Automotive - Manufacturers' as viewed by Australian Internet users. Bolstered by interest generated by the Melbourne Motor Show (www.motorshow.com.au), the unveiling of updated models and special editions by www.mazda.com.au and www.nissan.com.au has assisted each manufacturer to claw back valuable portions of market share as users bookmarked these sites at a rate of 9.38% and 9.04% respectively for the week ending February 5.

Category Spotlight: Business & Finance - Insurance

This category lists all sites belonging to companies that offer insurance services, including health insurance, car insurance and home insurance. The data below is based on Australian Weekly rankings for the week ending 12/03/2005, ranked by 'Visits'

Top 10 Business & Finance - Insurance sites for Australian audiences		Local Competitiveness Index
AMP Australia NRMA RACV AAMI Insurance iSelect Royal Automobile Club of Queensland Medibank Private ING Online Royal Automobile Association of South Australia MLC		96.2% of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.

Fast Mover - Google Desktop Search

desktop.google.com


Rank March 6 - 536
Rank March 9 - 34
Positions jumped - 502

A new search facility developed by Google.com to search files, web pages, instant messages and email has rocketed up the charts as users download the application and apply Google's famous search technology to their own hard drives. Statistics available for the month of February indicate that desktop.google.com was bookmarked by 26.76% of users, indicating that one in every four visitors plan to return to the website. The website's popularity is further reflected by its popularity against other Software competitors, becoming the 34th most popular website visited by Australians in the Computers & Internet - Software category on March 9.

The following report lists the most popular terms typed into search engines over the last 12 weeks to 5/03/05 that resulted in traffic to websites classified by Hitwise within the 'Shopping & Classifieds - Department Stores' industry. For example, the most popular search term was 'harvey norman' representing 3.20% of all search terms that delivered users to websites in the 'Shopping & Classifieds -Department Stores' industry.

If you are interested in using Hitwise content and statistics in publications and presentations, we encourage you to do so. Please source the content as "Hitwise Australia - www.hitwise.com.au".

Additionally - if you require assistance with statistics or content, please feel free to contact James Borg at james.borg@hitwise.com.

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Copyright Hitwise Pty Ltd, March 2005