| Hitwise Australia Political Websites Analysis |
Hitwise reports that Search Engines were the predominant source of visits to the Lifestyle - Politics category leading up to the Victorian State Election, sending 27.3 percent of visits to Australian sites the week ending 11 November 2006. Among the websites within the Computers and Internet - Search Engines category, 17.29 percent of visits to the politics category was referred by Google Australia, showing its unmistakable influence on visits to political websites.
In contrast to the US mid-term elections, Hitwise observed that Computers and Internet - Email Services was the second most-popular category, sending 6.78 percent of visits to political websites, compared to the 6th position it occupied in Australia with 4.24 percent share. This suggests that political parties in the Australian State Elections have room to further leverage e-newsletters and online viral campaigning techniques to spread party policy. In the US, Search Engines were also the most important contributor of traffic to political websites with 28.17 percent share week ending 4 November 2006.
Voter Concerns - Water and Drought
Hitwise search terms are able to give an indication of voter concerns. Search term volumes on 'water tanks', 'water restrictions' and 'drought' have increased sharply prior to the Victorian November 2006 State Elections. Searches on the term 'drought' however, are more likely to be directed to News & Media and Education online properties - with 12.29 percent and 12.15 percent industry traffic share respectively - than political websites. As drought and similar issues such as climate change pick up in the consciousness of the population, political parties have the opportunity to monitor and respond to this momentum via targeted content and search engine listings for key election issues.
Political Party Online Rank Stack
Online users increasingly visited websites of the Victorian branches of the major political parties to inform their decision on November 25. All websites attracted a stark jump in visits with the Australian Greens Victoria (www.vic.greens.org.au) at the lead for the week ending 11 November 2006. People Power (www.peoplepower.org.au) measured the largest increase over the last 2 weeks with visits spiking by 124.2 percent. Referral traffic amongst political websites has also increased over the same time period by 23.6 percent indicating users could be undecided and are engaged in comparison research.
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| 1. |
Computers & Internet - Search Engines |
27.30% |
| 2. |
News & Media - Print |
7.07% |
| 3. |
Lifestyle - Politics |
6.78% |
| 4. |
Lifestyle - Blogs and Personal Websites |
4.79% |
| 5. |
Computers & Internet - Net Communities and Chat |
4.68% |
| 6. |
Computers & Internet - Email Services |
4.24% |
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| Shopping and Classifieds - Music |
The following report lists the most popular terms typed into a search engine over the 4 weeks ending 25/11/2006 that resulted in traffic to websites classified by Hitwise within the 'Shopping and Classifieds - Music' industry.
For example, the most popular search term was 'jb hifi' representing 2.19% of all search terms that delivered users to websites classified by Hitwise in the 'Shopping and Classifieds - Music' industry.
|
|
| 1. |
jb hifi |
2.19% |
| 2. |
jb hi fi |
1.92% |
| 3. |
sanity |
1.92% |
| 4. |
itunes |
1.34% |
| 5. |
hmv |
0.80% |
| 6. |
music |
0.68% |
| 7. |
abc shop |
0.63% |
| 8. |
jb hi-fi |
0.48% |
| 9. |
jbhifi |
0.44% |
| 10. |
allans music |
0.37% |
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| Telstra 3 Share Offer - www.t3shareoffer.com.au |
Position 7th October: 4,959
Position 11th November: 306
Positions jumped: 4,653
Telstra 3 Share Offer (www.t3shareoffer.com.au) is the online presence for the third public offering of shares in Telstra by the Australian Government.
The Telstra 3 share offer was launched on 9th October 2006 and Hitwise Australia data for the week ending 7th October 2006 showed that www.t3shareoffer.com.au ranked 4,959 amongst Australian sites. The offer closed on 9th November 2006 and Hitwise Australia data for the week ending 11th November 2006 showed that it had risen to the 306th position after being in the top 500 Australian sites since the week ending 14th October 2006. The ranking of 306 among all Australian sites equated to a ranking of 14 in the Business and Finance - Stocks and Shares vertical.
The five most popular upstream websites (websites visited before Telstra 3 Share Offer) for the week ending 11th November were: Google Australia (www.google.com.au); netwealth (www.netwealth.com.au); Telstra (www.telstra.com); ninemsn (www.ninemsn.com.au) and Commonwealth Securities (www.comsec.com.au).
The most popular search term driving traffic to this site over the 4 weeks ending 11th November 2006 was "t3", which accounted for 17.81% of all search traffic. The average session duration for visits to www.t3shareoffer.com.au for the week ending October 11th was approximately 5 minutes.
Hitwise Australia's Lifestyle tool which uses Mosaic Data from Pacific Micro Marketing shows that t3shareoffer.com.au's primary users belonged to the Domestic Appliance category. Based on data for the 4 week period ending Saturday 11th November, this group - best described as "better-off families in core suburban and rural fringe locations" - generated 25.44% of the site's marketshare. Community Challenge, defined as "disadvantaged peripheral urban and country neighbourhoods" generated the second-highest marketshare to the site with 14.01%. The highest number of visits by Mosaic Australia Type however, was recorded at 5.94% by Midlife Sophisticates, or "affluent older families in long-standing communities".
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| Lifestyle - Environment |
| Sites in the Environment category encourage ecological conservation, recycling and environmental awareness. The data below is based on All sites » Weekly rankings for the week ending 25/11/2006 » Ranks by 'Visits'. |
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|
|
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| 59.7% |
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of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.
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|
|
| 1. |
Computers and Internet |
48.9% |
| 2. |
Computers and Internet - Search Engines |
35.8% |
| 3. |
Government |
9.8% |
| 4. |
Education |
8.6% |
| 5. |
Lifestyle |
8.4% |
| 6. |
News and Media |
6.9% |
| 7. |
Entertainment |
6.5% |
| 8. |
Education - Reference |
6.2% |
| 9. |
Business and Finance |
5.3% |
| 10. |
Government - National |
4.8% |
|
|
|
|
| 1. |
Computers and Internet |
20.4% |
| 2. |
Government |
15.2% |
| 3. |
Lifestyle |
13.2% |
| 4. |
Education |
10.4% |
| 5. |
Business and Finance |
10.3% |
| 6. |
News and Media |
8.1% |
| 7. |
Computers and Internet - Search Engines |
7.9% |
| 8. |
Entertainment |
7.7% |
| 9. |
Education - Reference |
7.6% |
| 10. |
Lifestyle - Environment |
7.3% |
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