New York, NY - Mar. 10, 2009 - Hitwise, an Experian company,announced today that Google accounted for 72.11 percent of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending Feb. 28, 2009. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 17.04 percent, 5.56 percent and 3.74 percent, respectively. The remaining 46 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.56 percent of U.S. searches.
| Percentage of category traffic from search engines - February 2009 |
| Category | Feb -08 | Jan-09 | Feb-09 | Year-over-year percent change |
| www.google.com | 66.47% | 72.09% | 72.11% | 8% |
| search.yahoo.com | 20.60% | 17.81% | 17.04% | -17% |
| search.msn.com | 6.95%* | 5.44%* | 5.56%* | -20% |
| www.ask.com | 4.16% | 3.31% | 3.74% | -10% |
Note: Data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending Feb. 28, 2009; Jan. 31, 2009; and March 1, 2008) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. |
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*Includes executed searches on Live.com and MSN Search but does not include searches on Club.Live.com. Source: Hitwise, an Experian company |
Longer search queries becoming more popular
The length of search queries has increased over the past year. Longer search queries, averaging searches of five to more than eight words in length, have increased 9 percent between February 2009 and February 2008. Searches of eight or more words increased 20 percent. The same time period showed that shorter search queries - those averaging one to four words long - have decreased 2 percent. Searches of two words comprised the majority of searches, amounting to 23.47 percent of all queries.
| Percentage of U.S. clicks by number of keywords | ||||
| Subject | Feb-08 | Jan-09 | Feb-09 | Year-over-year percent change |
| One word | 21.04% | 20.29% | 20.48% | -3% |
| Two words | 24.73% | 23.65% | 23.47% | -5% |
| Three words | 21.84% | 21.92% | 21.68% | -1% |
| Four words | 14.53% | 14.89% | 14.98% | 3% |
| Five words | 8.29% | 8.68% | 8.72% | 5% |
| Six words | 4.38% | 4.65% | 4.71% | 8% |
| Seven words | 2.29% | 2.49% | 2.51% | 10% |
| Eight or more words | 2.90% | 3.43% | 3.47% | 20% |
Note: Data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending Feb. 28, 2009; Jan. 31, 2009; and March 1, 2008) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. |
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Google an increasing source of traffic to key U.S. industries
Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories. Comparing February 2009 with February 2008, Business and Finance, Sports, Online Video and Social Networking 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 - February 2009 |
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Category |
Percentage of category traffic from search engines - February 2009 |
Percent change in share of traffic from search engines - February2009-February 2008 |
Percentage of category traffic from Google - February2009 |
Percent change in share of traffic from Google - February2009- February2008 |
|
Health and Medical |
46.52% |
4% |
34.06% |
16% |
|
Travel |
36.24% |
10% |
27.08% |
22% |
|
Shopping and Classifieds |
24.54% |
-3% |
17.49% |
7% |
|
News and Media |
21.79% |
2% |
15.88% |
13% |
|
Entertainment |
26.41% |
9% |
18.61% |
23% |
|
Business and Finance |
20.15% |
15% |
14.24% |
29% |
|
Sports |
15.75% |
16% |
11.46% |
31% |
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Online Video** |
35.64% |
24% |
26.88% |
41% |
|
Social Networking** |
17.29% |
10% |
11.30% |
25% |
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All figures are based on U.S. data from the Hitwise sample of 10 million Internet users. |
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Source: Hitwise, an Experian company |
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About Hitwise
Hitwise, an Experian company is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,500 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive Web sites and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.
Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise's patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy-to-use, Web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.
Hitwise, an Experian company (FTS: EXPN), www.experianplc.com, operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.
For up-to-date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence - Analyst Weblogs and the Hitwise Data Center.