Travel reaches highest ever peak online

In the week ending January 14, the online travel sector reached its highest ever peak over the last 15 months, accounting for 5.8% of all online visits - a 13% increase compared with the same week in 2005. Moreover, visits to travel websites were up 34% from the week ending December 31.

Early indications are that travel websites are set to enjoy a strong year in 2006. January is typically a busy time for travel websites as consumers turn their attention from the sales to winter escape, and reports of an unusually cold winter may also be good news for the travel sector. Furthermore, Hitwise has seen a marked increase of 30% in the volume of visits that search engines are sending to travel websites. Search is a critical source of visits, accounting for 38% of visits to travel websites, and Google's dominance continues to be felt - accounting for 73% of the visits that Travel websites received from search engines in December.

Searches for 'ski holidays' saw a sudden boost in the two weeks directly following Christmas, with searches increasing by 29% from the week ending December 24. Websites receiving the most traffic from this term were CrystalSki.co.uk (www.crystalski.co.uk), Lastminute.com (www.lastminute.com) and Ski-Holidays.com (www.ski-holidays.com), whilst 'inghams', a ski tour company, was the 42nd most searched-for Destinations & Accommodation term for the week ending December 31, 2005.

Searches for 'flights to australia' also benefited from a renewed surge in popularity as consumers sought sunnier climates amidst the January blues. Searches on this term were up 96% (comparing week ending January 14, 2006 and December 24, 2005) whilst searches for 'flights to new zealand' increased 74% over this same period.

Hitwise Search Intelligence data reveal the search terms containing the word "flights to" for the four weeks ending January 21, 2006. The results are ordered based on the volume of searches.

	Search Term	Volume		Success Rate
1.	flights to australia	1.11%		92.45%
2.	flights to tenerife	0.86%		93.71%
3.	cheap flights to tenerife	0.82%		94.06%
4.	cheap flights to australia	0.70%		95.31%
5.	flights to new york	0.66%		95.01%
6.	flights to cyprus	0.65%		90.34%
7.	flights to canada	0.55%		93.84%
8.	cheap flights to new york	0.52%		94.89%
9.	flights to malaga	0.50%		94.17%
10.	flights to dublin	0.50%		89.47%

The following article, authored by Heather Hopkins, Hitwise UK Director of Research, appeared in the January 19, 2006 issue of NMA.

Millions of pounds are spent each year on brand advertising, but the Internet introduces a host of new challenges. According to data from our forthcoming White Paper on Best Practices for Search Engine Brand Management, almost one in ten web searches for a major brand sends users to a competitor's website. Online businesses need to be aware of the extent of this problem and to understand the best ways to deal with any threats.

Analysis of ten leading retail and travel brands in December (Amazon, Argos, British Airways, Comet, Currys, easyJet, Expedia, Ryanair, Tesco and Thomson Holidays) revealed that 85% of visits from the top search term for each brand sent visits to the brand owner's website. On average, 8% of visits went to competitor, price comparison and affiliate sites.

The issue becomes more complex when misspellings and searches that combine the brand name with a key product term in the search string are considered. Whilst 88% of searches for 'ryanair' in December sent visits to www.ryanair.com, searches for 'rynair', one of the most common misspellings of the brand, sent only 42% of visits to its site.

Brand owners can benefit from monitoring competitor and affiliate listings in search results by doing searches and monitoring the sites that appear in the results. And if a competitor receives an increasing numbers of visits from searches on your brand, you may want to take action by scrutinising your competitor's effective ads and learning from them.

To request a copy of the Hitwise White Paper on Best Practices for Search Engine Brand Management, click here.

Fast Mover: Million Dollar Homepage

www.milliondollarhomepage.com


Position week ending December 24: 6,202
Position week ending January 14: 1,907
Positions jumped: 4,295

The website that became famous for earning $1M (£566,000) for plots of pixels sold to advertisers reached its highest ever weekly ranking of #1,907 among all sites in the UK for the week ending January 14.

With the sale of the final 1,000 pixels taking place during the week ending January 14, the share of Internet searches for 'million dollar homepage' increased four times week-on-week with visits from search engines accounting for 37% of the site's traffic (up from 29% in December).

As expected, eBay has been a huge beneficiary - both in terms of publicity around the auctions for pixels and the site's growth. eBay (combined UK and .com properties) received 23% of downstream visits from the site for the week ending January 14. Hitwise also captured over 200 different websites visited after Million Dollar Homepage. The Times Online was the number three downstream site, receiving 2% of visits from the site. The Times Online also has a prominent ad on the site and is often mentioned in articles about Million Dollar Homepage as one of the most high profile advertisers on the site.

News In Brief

Detox and GI Diets Prove Popular in UK

With the Christmas holiday over, UK consumers turned to the web in earnest for advice on dieting and fitness. Visits to dieting sites followed a predictable seasonable pattern: the first day back at work after New Year's celebrations is typically the busiest day for consumers searching for information on how to lose the post-Christmas bulge.

Market share of visits to websites in the Hitwise Health & Medical - Wellbeing category were up 12% on Tuesday January 3, compared with the same day in 2005. Weight Watchers captured 31% market share of visits to the category, more than doubling its share of visits compared with the previous day. While Weight Watchers UK was the most visited diet site throughout most of 2005, the site has gained significantly year-on-year, with a 69% increase in visits comparing January 3, 2006 and January 4, 2005.

This year detox diets are proving popular, with 'detox' one of the top diet-related search terms for the week ending December 31, 2005. The volume of searches for 'detox' were slightly higher than those for 'gi diet' week ending December 31, with both terms receiving a 30% larger volume of searches compared with last year's favourite - 'atkins diet'.

The massive seasonal surge in searches for diets and visits to dieting sites illustrates a seasonal pattern that is insightful to online marketers, allowing them to fine tune search marketing campaigns to the weeks and days during which consumers are searching for products and services.

Category Spotlight: Health and Medical – Wellbeing

This category features sites related to aspects of healthy living and lifestyle, including exercise, eating, wellbeing. The data below is based on All sites » Weekly rankings for the week ending 21/01/2006 » Ranks by 'Visits'.

Local Competitiveness Index 75.0% of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.	Traffic Distribution The chart above illustrates the distribution of this category's traffic for the week among sites in various rank ranges.
Top 10 Upstream Categories 1. Computers and Internet 56.0% 2. Computers and Internet - Search Engines and Directories 41.8% 3. Health and Medical 11.4% 4. Shopping and Classifieds 9.7% 5. Health and Medical - Wellbeing 7.3% 6. Computers and Internet - Email Services 4.6% 7. Business and Finance 3.8% 8. Lifestyle 3.4% 9. Entertainment 3.4% 10. Shopping and Classifieds - Department Stores 2.6%	Top 10 Downstream Categories 1. Computers and Internet 23.4% 2. Health and Medical 18.7% 3. Shopping and Classifieds 16.9% 4. Health and Medical - Wellbeing 11.9% 5. Computers and Internet - Search Engines and Directories 10.0% 6. Business and Finance 9.4% 7. Lifestyle 5.5% 8. Computers and Internet - Software 4.8% 9. Travel 4.6% 10. Entertainment 4.4%

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Copyright Hitwise Pty Ltd, January 2006