Search Engine Services

Latest Search Engine Marketing Facts

AOL has the best referral-to-order conversion ratio

AOL's search service has the best referral-to-order conversion ratio among major search engines in 2003. AOL's search service topped the list with a conversion ratio of 3.03 percent, according to a new study by WebSideStory's StatMarket. Yahoo and Google, the two largest search engines in terms of referring traffic volume, ranked 9th and 10th in the conversion study respectively. The study is based on 29 million search engine visits to dozens of e-commerce sites using WebSideStory's outsourced HitBox services. As a group, the e-commerce sites used in the study sell a broad range of products and services, everything from gifts and electronics to shoes and office equipment. The search engine visits include those generated by both paid search keywords and organic listings. All orders resulting from search engine visits were generated in the same session. The study does not include shopping-specific search engines.

The visit-to-order conversion rankings are quite different than WebSideStory's global referring search engine rankings, which show Google as the top referring search engine on the Web, followed by Yahoo, MSN and AOL.

Search Engine Market Statistics

Why is Search Engine Marketing one of the most attractive businesses on the Internet

• 3.3 billion searches are conducted every month in the U.S.
• The internet search market has grown to $1.6 billion in 2003, and is expected to grow to $2.1 billion in 2004.
• The market for paid search advertising should expand to $4.3 billion in 2008, according to Jupiter Research.

Search Engine Market Share according to Nielsen//NetRatings

Search Engine Market Share according to ComScore, August 2003

• Google has 31.5% share of the search engine market
• Yahoo! has 25.7% share
• AOL has 19.7% share
• Microsoft Search has 17.2%, but its results are provided by LookSmart (until January 2004) and supplemented by Yahoo's Inktomi Corp. and Overture Services Inc.

Search Engine Market Share according to OneStat.com, November 2003

The 7 largest (in terms of global usage) search engines on the web are:

1. Google 56.1%
2. Yahoo 21.5%
3. MSN Search 9.4%
4. AOL Search 3.7%
5. Terra Lycos 2.3
6. Altavista 1.9%
7. Askjeeves 1.6%

Online Holiday Spending To Increase 21% In 2003

Jupiter Research announced that it forecasts that online holiday retail sales will be $17 billion, a 21% increase over online consumer spending in 2002. Despite the fact that 46% of consumers stated they will shop more than four weeks before the holiday, Jupiter Research expects the convenience of online purchasing, the primary reason consumers shop online, to push purchasers to the very edge of the buying season.

Based on the October 2003 consumer survey "Holiday 2003: Online Pushes Limits of Last Minute Shopping," the Jupiter report found that close to 40% of online users plan to do some or all of their holiday shopping online, an increase of 18% over last year.

• Overall, consumers are more confident in spending in the online channel
• Fewer consumers cited fear of credit card security this versus last year (36% vs. 47%, respectively)
• Half of consumers say they can find the products they are looking for online more easily than in stores
• They believe they can obtain hard-to-locate products online far easier than in stores.

Jupiter Research attributes these shifts in consumer attitude, and the 21% surge in holiday spending this year, to the influx of new buyers using the online channel.

Few words on meta search engines

Metasearch engines harness the power of several search engines. Notable examples of the breed include MetaCrawler ( www.metacrawler.com ), which uses Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, About, LookSmart, Overture and FindWhat; Search.com ( www.search.com ), which uses "Google, Ask Jeeves, LookSmart and dozens of other leading search engines"; and the delightfully named Dogpile ( www.dogpile.com ), which calls on Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, About, LookSmart, Overture, Teoma and FindWhat.

Has your website been optimized to benefit from the surge in online purchases? Contact us for a free estimate in helping you achieve the highest rankings with the search engines!