Apparently October brought a lot of costume searchers online.  After several months of declining search query volumes, October query volumes ticked up 4% m-o-m. Total web search activity peaked just shy of 13 billion queries in the US.  Among the major market players nearly every engine benefitted from the lift in activity.  However behind the rising tide only one engine managed to pull ahead of the pack.

Continue reading “October Search Market Share Update: Most gain in volume but only Google gains share” »

What terms drove the greatest query volume spike? Let’s take a look at some of the fastest growing terms since this time last year to get a better idea of the trend in consumer search interest.

Findings:

• The upward trend in search as a means of navigation continues. Social networking sites Facebook and Twitter account for a large portion of this growth.
• Yahoo! mail, AOL Mail, Gmail, Hotmail all make it onto the top movers list
• Netflix, ask.com, Comcast.net, TMZ, and Capital One have all at least doubled their query volume over the last year
• Michael Jackson is still on everyone’s mind still receiving over 2 million queries last month
• The fastest growing term was windows live, having less than 80,000 searches last year, last month there were 4.5 million (5588% increase)

Findings:

• With no election this year, queries for presidential candidates Barack Obama, and Sarah Palin have taken a back seat.
• Circuit City’s bankruptcy/liquidation and the subsequent closing all of its stores to exclusively become an online store has resulted in a significant drop in its search power. Surprisingly it still received over 200,000 queries.
• Evidently, Tramadol is no longer the narcotic hot topic.

Social networks are still becoming more and more popular. Based on an announcement this past Tuesday, Facebook has become the worlds largest social networking site with over 300 million worldwide users and is now financially viable, generating enough cash flow to cover all expenses plus the capital to continue expanding. Is Twitter next?

Microsoft Live has experienced considerable growth over the last year and their recent launch of the Bing brand looks to propel them even further.

The next few months should shape up to give an interesting look at the shopping habits of consumers as we near the Christmas season. Will the recession force price conscious consumers to rely on search as a bargain hunting tool? What will be the hottest toys compared with last year? Check back over the next few months to see.

July search term biggest movers are here! What terms drove the greatest query volume spike? Let’s take a look at some of the fastest growing terms since this time last year to get a better idea of the trend in consumer search interest.

Findings:

• Facebook, Craigslist, Twitter, and YouTube have seen explosive traffic growth in the past year and to follow suit their query volumes have grown substantially
• While portal properties Yahoo! (141MM Uvs) and AOL (55MM Uvs) haven’t significantly grown in traffic, they have seen 50%+ increase in brand queries since last year
• No sharp traffic trends in webmail properties Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail, but brand terms for both of these properties have risen sharply

Overall, brand term use is on the rise. Why, might you ask? One answer is that consumers are becoming more dependent on search for navigation (typing a brand into the search bar instead of navigating directly to the brands website). It’s not that consumers don’t know the names of these brands – they’re using the exact brand name as their search query as you can see below.

Taking a quick look at the top 5 keyword referrals (data taken from site profiles on compete.com) to some of the domains mentioned above, we see that navigational search nearly always encompases the top 5 keyword referrals to the sites (and a large portion of search referral traffic).

Search (as a means of navigation) is on the rise, at least in terms of traffic to some of these big online brands. Did internet surfer laziness take over (‘www.’ and ‘.com’ became too hard to type)? Are consumers showing more engine loyalty/trust in their engine’s results? I’ll admit I’m one of them.

Check back next month to see how this trend continues to take shape.

June search term biggest movers are here! What terms drove the greatest monthly query volume spike? Let’s take a look at the fastest growing (and declining) terms since last month to get a better idea of the trend in consumer search interest.

Growing Search Term Findings:

• Celebrity deaths take the cake; Billy Mays (“Billy Mays here for Compete search terms”), and Michael Jackson (long live the king)
• Howard Stern kept from the Sirius iPhone application
• BING – Microsoft launches a new search engine. Check the Compete search market share blog to see how it fared in the first month!

Declining Search Term Findings:

• As summer warms up, tv series take a back seat; Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, Biggest Loser, Grey’s Anatomy, Survivor, Britain’s Got Talent, and Lost all decline in interest
• After being gunned down in LA in May, Dolla’s death takes a back seat

Starting to see a trend here? Along with TV shows, big stories continue to drive explosive growth and decline of terms (focused mainly on celebrity news and gossip).

With a new engine now in the mix (Microsoft’s Bing), will there be a change in how users perform search queries? Check back next month for the Fastest Moving Terms of July.

May search term biggest movers are here! What terms drove the greatest monthly query volume spike? Let’s take a look at the fastest growing (and declining) terms since last month to get a better idea of the trend in consumer search interest.

Findings:

• Rumors have surfaced around the divorce of Jon and Kate Plus 8 parents Jon and Kate Gosselin
• Photos of the car crash that killed Nikki Catsouras on Halloween 2006 continue to plague her family
• Kris Allen is crowned the winner of American Idol Season 8!
• In preparation for Mothers Day, loving children were looking for poems and flowers for mom

Findings:

• As we get further from the most feared day of the year (Tax Day - April 15th), searches for the IRS and tax related software continue a steep decline
• Susan Boyle wowed watchers of Britains Got Talent, but she lost her second in the spotlight
• While fear of the swine flu hasn’t subsided, it’s started to take a back seat in terms of search incidence

With a new engine coming into play (Microsoft’s Bing launched in early June), what will be the impact on search term? Will top TV show searches still influence a good portion of the search term movement? Check back next month for the Fastest Moving Terms of June.

March search term biggest movers are here! What terms drove March’s huge spike in queries? Let’s take a look at the fastest growing (and declining) terms since last month to get a better idea of the trend in consumer search interest.

Findings:

• Micro-blogging service Twitter has gained significant popularity over the past couple months. Branded searches have sky-rocketed along with Twitter’s site traffic.
• The one time of the year that I watch NCAA basketball, March Madness was in full effect. Congrats to the UNC Tar Heels!!!
• Adam Lambert captivates American Idol fans, and The Bachelor’s Melissa Rycroft joins the 8th season of Dancing with the Stars.

Findings:

• Most people have filed their taxes at this point - at least identified a service (hrblock, taxact, and turbotax were the top brands searched) to use for online filing OR found the irs site to download documents.
• Valentine’s day has passed, the next big flower occasion is Mothers Day. Mark your calendars and don’t forget to mail mom a dozen.

How will the MLB’s Opening Day and Easter egg fun compare? Check back next month for the Fastest Moving Terms of April.