Posts tagged Hitwise
Bing is finally starting to pose a serious challenge to Google
Jun 8th
Google and Yahoo! both lost market share in terms of searches in May 2011 as Bing, Ask and other search engines made significant gains.
According to the latest Experian Hitwise figures, Google Sites were still responsible for over 90% of UK internet searches in May, accounting for 0.32% fewer searches than in April.
Year-on-year, Google Sites were also down by 1.40%, with a lower share of the search market than in May 2010.
Yahoo! Sites also lost search market share last month, dropping from 3.15% of all UK Internet searches in April to 3.08% in May.
The dip in performance for both Google and Yahoo! Sites can be attributed to Microsoft Bing’s growth in popularity.
Microsoft Sites, led by Bing, increased their market share of all UK Internet searches by 0.18% last month, taking the company to 4.26% of UK searches.
Microsoft also improved on its performance in the search market year-on-year with a 1.26% increase in searches. Although not as prominent as Bing, Ask Sites saw growth in May improving their market share of searches by 0.10% and the niche search engines included in the Other category also saw growth of 0.10% between April and May 2011.
Robin Goad, research director of Experian Hitwise, said: “Google is still very much in the driving seat when it comes to search, and May’s minor loss in market share does little to dent the 90% share Google has in this field.
“However, the more interesting trends are to look at year-on-year changes in the search market, where Microsoft is taking market share away from Google. The key will be if Microsoft can continue this trend and mount a stronger challenge on Google.”
10 things about Facebook that aren’t in the movie
Oct 14th
With the release of The Social Network in the UK this week, Experian Hitwise looks at just how popular the world’s biggest social networking site – Facebook – really is.
While a number of statistics will be quoted in the media about Facebook this week, below are some unique insights from Experian Hitwise’s data which is the biggest internet sample in the UK.
1. Facebook is the second most visited website in the UK after Google, accounting for 6.89% of all visits from UK Internet users in September.
2. In terms of internet pages viewed, Facebook is by far the biggest website in the UK. In total, 16.40% of all page views during September went to a Facebook page. Facebook now accounts for 1 in 6 page views in the UK, that’s twice the number of page views received by Google.
3. Facebook is the most popular social network in the UK, accounting for 55% of all visits to social networks. The nearest competitor is YouTube, which receives 16% of all visits to the category. Facebook is nearly 3.5 times bigger than YouTube in terms of monthly Internet visits in the UK.
4. Facebook is the number one search term in the UK. 3.69% of all searches typed into Google, Yahoo! and Bing are for ‘facebook’. Taking into account variations of Facebook with misspellings and abbreviations such as ‘facbook’, ‘fb’ or ‘facebok’ – Facebook accounts for approximately 6% of all searches in search engines.
5. The average session time for a user visiting Facebook is 27 minutes and 12 seconds.
6. Facebook accounts for 9.58% of all upstream traffic to other websites in the UK. In other words, Facebook is the second biggest source of traffic to all other websites, with nearly 10% of Internet visits come immediately after a visit to Facebook, making it the second largest source of traffic for other websites after Google.
7. Visits to Facebook have quadrupled in the last three years. In the last year Facebook has grown by 17% in terms of UK Internet visits.
8. Per head of population, the most prolific visitors to Facebook in the UK are in Sunderland. Sunderland accounts for 0.44% of all UK Internet visits to Facebook despite only having a population of 443,000 people (0.72% of the UK population).
9. In the last year, Facebook has increased its downstream traffic to online retail sites by 12%. Facebook is increasingly being used by companies as a means of advertising rather than a means for friends to talk to one another.
10. The Social Network was the second most searched for movie of the week ending 09 October 2010 behind Paranormal Activity 2. The Social Network was also the second fastest climbing movie search term compared to the previous week ending 02 October 2010.
Cristiano Ronaldo wins the search popularity crown
Jun 16th
World Cup fever is at an all time high this year, but you’d be surprised about where our patriotism lies when it comes to our most loved players.
Rio Ferdinand is the most searched for footballer in the UK this World Cup season and Cristiano Ronaldo is the most popular around the world, according to statistics from Hitwise Intelligence.
At the beginning of the Cup, one in every 155 search terms typed into a search engine in the UK were World Cup related.
Injured England captain Rio Ferdinand was the most searched for footballer in the UK during the week ending 05/06/10, and he was joined in the top 10 at number three by Theo Walcott, another England star who isn’t actually playing in South Africa.
Here is the full top 10 list:
1. Rio Ferdinand
2. Joe Cole
3. Theo Walcott
4. Cristiano Ronaldo
5. Wayne Rooney
6. Steven Gerrard
7. Fernando Torres
8. Frank Lampard
9. John Terry
10. Emile Heskey
Former Manchester United winger and Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo was in the fourth place in the UK, but was the most searched for player in all of the other countries studied including France, USA, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.
The lists of the most searched players in different countries in the tables below reveal the global popularity of the football’s biggest stars.
People all over the world are searching for Cristiano Ronaldo, while Spanish players are also extremely popular – Fernando Torres, Cesc Fabregas and David Villa appear high up on many of the lists. Read the rest of this entry »
Questions to ask your SEO agency – Part 1
Jun 7th
The digital era is well and truly in full flight. Just 10 years ago, some businesses were allocating minimal percentages of their marketing budgets to online, including SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Fast forward to 2010 and no business can afford to be without this element of the marketing mix.
Ranking your business in the various search engines is important for many reasons – brand awareness, traffic to your website and most importantly lead generation.
Experian Hitwise has been in the online space for many years and has learnt through clients and industry experience that there seem to be many ‘cowboys’ offering SEO services, ultimately promising the world, only to leave clients disillusioned and with no real results in sight.
So to avoid all the heart ache, expense and frustrations, we have put together the top 11 questions you should be asking an SEO agency before signing anything plus the answers they should be giving you!
Following are the first three questions in this three-part series:
Question 1: What is your SEO Methodology?
At the end of the day, if you’re paying any marketing agency money to build your business, that’s exactly what you should get in return – growth. The beauty of online is that it shows undeniable statistics about traffic, bounce rates and all of those other little gems that TV, radio and magazines have no real way of proving. You SEO agency must be dedicated to delivering services that positively impact your bottom line and ensure that both your SEO and business objectives are being achieved. SEO is certainly not a ‘set and forget’ function – it is a constant learning, monitoring and tweaking process that should be carried out by experienced SEO professionals.
A highly consultative methodology should be employed to ensure your agency completely understands the habits and key drivers of your customers and how you can appeal to them in the most attractive way.
Question 2: How Important is Keyword Research and How Do You Do it?
Keyword research is very important – this is how Google and other search engines understand what your website is about and determines how to rank it accordingly on the search engine result pages. There are a range of highly developed software tools available on the market that your agency should have access to so they can learn exactly how and what your customers are typing into the search engines. This is how your SEO agency can then develop a baseline for these keywords through understanding what your main product offerings are – thus allowing them to provide relevant and impactful keywords to focus on.
Question 3: Do You Guarantee Results?
In short, no agency should ever promise this. This is because there are a wide range of variables from both your website and the search engines.
For example, each and every client is different and so are their resources. If an agency makes technical recommendations that will no doubt increase the likelihood of traffic, yet you do not have the budget or resource to make these changes, then the agency is somewhat limited to the success of the SEO campaign. It also depends on the nature of your business – the more competitive your relevant keywords are, (e.g. car insurance) the longer it will take to see movement within the rankings of search engines.
On the flip side, search engines are quite secretive with the algorithms they use and will often change them without notice. Therefore, the way an agency should work around this, is by utilising highly experienced SEO professionals to monitor the search engines regularly to identify any changes, big or small.
This report has been republished with permission from the authors at Experian Hitiwse.
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