Visits to Sirius.com Almost Double Last Year

Searches on Both XM and Sirius Result in Holiday Retail Visits

Howard Stern's departure from broadcast radio has raised the questions of how many loyal Stern fans will follow him to Sirius Satellite Radio, and how this move will impact the satellite radio market overall.

The market share of visits to Sirius Satellite Radio (www.siriusradio.com) and XM Radio (www.xmradio.com) increased 99 percent and 61 percent respectively for the week ending December 17, 2005 versus the same week last year (week ending December 18, 2004). In September, with Howard Stern's departure imminent, the market share of visits to Sirius Satellite Radio surpassed XM Radio, which claims more than twice the number of subscribers as Sirius.

Interest in satellite radio has increased as the holidays approached; the share of searches containing the word "sirius" surged 78 percent when comparing the week ending December 17, 2005 to the week before Thanksgiving (week ending November 19, 2005), while the share of searches containing "xm" was up 13 percent in the same period.

While over 65 percent of searches for "xm radio" and "sirius radio" resulted in a visit to the respective company web pages for the four weeks ending December 17, 2005, searches for both products also resulted in visits to retail sites like Circuit City, Amazon.com, and Radio Shack. Retailers also figured prominently in sites visited directly after the Sirius site, with the Sirius Store (shop.sirius.com) capturing 39.4 percent of Sirius' downstream visits along with Best Buy (2.2 percent) and eBay (1.9 percent) for the week ending December 17, 2005. Sites visited immediately after XM Radio included the XM Radio Store (shop.xmradio.com) at 19.3 percent of downstream visits, Walmart.com (2.5 percent) and Best Buy (2.5 percent) during the same week.

"Search term and clickstream data on satellite radio systems demonstrate an increased interest in purchasing satellite radios this holiday season," said Bill Tancer, General Manager, Global Research at Hitwise. "Stern has increased awareness and spurred interest in satellite radio, not only for Sirius but for rival XM Radio. His move has also benefited retailers of satellite radio systems, ensuring that the radios will appear under many Christmas trees this holiday season."

Stern will bring a younger, more urban audience to satellite radio

XMRadio.com and SiriusRadio.com currently attract an older demographic than HowardStern.com. For the four weeks ending December 10, 2005, 35 percent of visitors to XM Radio were over the age of 45 years, compared to 24.5 percent of visitors to Sirius Radio. Visitors to HowardStern.com, however, were younger, with more than 50 percent were under the age of 34 years, and only 19.6 percent were over 45.

Visitors to satellite radio sites tend to live in the rural US as represented by Hitwise Claritas PRIZM NE Town & Country segments. More than 50 percent of visitors to XMRadio.com and 45 percent of visitors to SiriusRadio.com reside in the small towns and rural villages that make up this segment. In contrast, only 32.6 percent of visitors to HowardStern.com were in these Town & Country segments. Stern's site tends to attract a higher proportion of the Urban segments, with 23.4 percent of its visitors in an Urban social group, compared to 13.8 percent of visitors to Sirius, and 10.3 percent of visitors to XM Radio.

Search engines have become the primary method employed by Internet users in navigating the Internet, and visits to Search Engines & Directories sites accounted for more than 7 percent of all US Internet visits in November 2005. As both online and offline companies depend on search engines to drive site traffic, it is important to understand visitor trends among leading search engines.

Search Engine Share

The combined market share of visits for Google, Yahoo! Search, and MSN Search was 73.01 percent of the 1,710 sites in the Search Engines & Directories category for November 2005. Since changing its name from Google Print to Google Book Search, Google Book Search ranks among the Top 10 Search Engines & Directories. However, its average session time was still low, at 2 minutes 56 seconds for the month of November 2005. In the past 6 months, Google's market share of visits in the Search Engines & Directories category has grown by 10 percent (November 2005 versus May 2005) at the expense of Yahoo! Search and MSN Search. The share of searches performed on Google accounted for 61.8 percent of the total search volume across the 62 search engines tracked by Hitwise for the four weeks ending December 3, 2005, and its share of search volume increased by 6 percent versus six months ago (November 2005 versus May 2005). Yahoo! Search and MSN Search accounted for 25.6 percent and 5.1 percent of search volume respectively.

Shopping and Search

During the week of Thanksgiving 2005, Search Engines & Directories sites sent 14.3 percent of their downstream traffic to Shopping & Classifieds sites, an increase of 19.2 percent versus the previous week. This indicates that shopping became a top priority for Internet users during the week that is traditionally considered to be the official start of the holiday shopping season. MSN Search and Yahoo! Search, despite lower search volume, sent slightly more traffic to Shopping & Classifieds sites for the week ending November 26, 2005, at 15.99 percent and 16.11 percent respectively, compared to Google at 14.46 percent. The Rewards & Directories category was the Shopping & Classifieds sub-category that received the most traffic from search engines in November 2005. The major comparison shopping sites in this category, such as Froogle, Shopping.com, and Shopzilla received over 50 percent of upstream traffic from Search Engines & Directories. The House & Garden category received nearly a third of its upstream traffic from Search Engines & Directories in November 2005, showing the importance of search as a traffic acquisition method for sites in this category.

Search Term Charting

By comparing the share of searches that a specific keyword sends to different categories, online marketers can determine how their site or product offerings fit with user intent and plan their campaigns accordingly. The examination of keyword breadth and historical search term suggestion data allows the online marketer to glean valuable insights on searcher interest and opinion of new products, enabling more strategic planning of future campaigns.


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Hitwise Search Intelligence data reveal the search terms containing the word "diets" and "exercise" for the four weeks ending December 31, 2005. The results are ordered based on the volume of searches (see tables below).

Top 10 Search terms containing the word “diets” – based on volume of searches.
Period - Four Weeks Ending 12/31/2005

Fast Mover - Jenny Craig

www.jennycraig.com


Rank week ending November 26: 38
Rank week ending December 31: 19
Positions jumped: 19

It's time to put down the eggnog and steer clear of those holiday cookies! The health-conscious are visiting the official Jenny Craig website (www.jennycraig.com) undoubtedly with the intent of shedding those unwanted holiday pounds.

Hitwise data show that JennyCraig.com has witnessed an increase in market share of US visits by 105 percent (week ending December 31, 2005 vs. week ending November 26, 2005). The site has climbed the ranks among the Hitwise Health & Medical - Wellbeing category - from number 38 (week ending November 26, 2005) to number 19 (week ending December 31, 2005), well ahead of South Beach Diet (www.southbeachdiet.com) at number 26 and Slim Fast's official site (www.slimfast.com) at number 43.

Hitwise Clickstream data indicate dieters are shopping around. For the week ending December 31, 2005, Nutrisystem (www.nutrisystem.com), was the number one site visited after JennyCraig.com, receiving 13 percent of the downstream traffic. Among the sites contributing traffic to JennyCraig.com (for the same week ending December 31, 2005) both Nutrisystem.com and WeightWatchers.com drove 9.3% and 2.4%, respectively.

Hitwise Search Intelligence data further reveal that the top three terms resulting in traffic to JennyCraig.com were "jenny craig", "diets" and "healthy recipes" accounted for 43%, 3% and 2.3% respectively, for week ending December 31, 2005. Interesting enough, the term "kirstie alley" was the 9th most popular term, responsible for 1% of traffic, indicating the effectiveness of their campaign.

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 12/31/2005 » Ranks by 'Visits'.

Top 10 Health and Medical - Wellbeing sites		Average Session Duration
Weight Watchers BodyBuilding.com Kids Health WebMD Weight Loss Clinic Nutrisystem.com Dr Mercola - Optimal Wellness Centre Prevention Magazine RealAge Men's Health GNC		The average session duration for the Health and Medical - Wellbeing category during the week ending 12/31/05 was 8 minutes, 14 seconds which represents an increase of 33 seconds compared with last week.

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Copyright Hitwise Pty Ltd, January 2006