Internet Explorer (IE) is the browser where the most "non-Google" searches happen, according to data from ad network Chitika. The company analyzed "hundreds of millions of ad impressions [in the US and Canada] from within the Chitika Ad network" earlier this month. Chitika was seeking to determine search engine usage on each browser. Overall Chitika found that Google generated 74.7 percent of search traffic across all five browsers examined. Yahoo was second with 12.3 percent and Bing third with a 9.74 percent share across browsers. By comparison the most recent comScore data show Google [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing | Stats: Popularity | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News | Yahoo: Search

Google is seeing huge mobile search growth and search engines are widely used by mobile device owners. However a new study confirms that search is not the center of the mobile universe, as it is online. I discuss many of the top-line findings of the study, conducted by Nielsen and commissioned by Telmetrics and xAd, in my post at Marketing Land: Study: 50 Percent Of Mobile Queries In Travel, Restaurants, Autos Result In A Purchase. In a finding I didn't talk about in that post, the data reflect that tablet and smartphone users (in Travel, Autos and Restaurants) tend to go directly to websit [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Stats: NetRatings | Stats: Search Behavior

One of the key findings of the Q2 2012 Global Digital Advertising Update from Adobe (Efficient Frontier) is that search marketers can get more value from mobile campaigns than they now can on the PC. According to the report cost-per-click (CPC) prices are lower for both tablets and smartphones than comparable PC search campaigns and the ROI is higher in both cases -- although "conversions" are lower on smartphones. Adobe's data are drawn from "over 250 billion impressions and activity of 46 million fans for 225 companies in the automotive, CPG, financial services, media and entertainment, a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Marketing: Mobile | Stats: General | Stats: Search Behavior

Chitika published a study today on tablet device usage share and the click through rate (CTR) on ads based on screen size. The study showed that 8 inch tablets such as Vizio and Pantech had the highest level of click through rates but the lowest level of web usage rates. Similarly, the 8.9 inch tablets such as Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and the Archos 9 had the second highest click through rates with the second lowest rate of Web usage rates. Apple's iPad is the leader on click through rate when it comes to measuring a single tablet device despite size. The iPad lead the 9.7" tablet [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Stats: General | Stats: Search Behavior | Stats: Size | Top News

Nearly 20 percent of the top search queries on Twitter at any given moment won't be a popular search query just one hour later. That's according to a new research paper that Twitter will present this week at a social media conference. Twitter researchers Jimmy Lin and Gilad Mishne analyzed all search queries on the site during October 2011 and discovered that 17 percent of the top 1,000 search queries from one hour aren't in the top 1,000 queries the next hour. The churn of Twitter search activity is nearly the same when measured at a daily level, rather than hourly. Lin and Mishne say [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News | Twitter: Search

I had a chance recently to speak to DataPop CEO Jason Lehmbeck. Before DataPop Lehmbeck was at Overture/Yahoo. DataPop is an agency/platform that specializes in "offer driven" search campaigns. I was talking to Lehmbeck about mobile search trends and what kinds of consumer response he was seeing to various campaigns. Lehmbeck gave me some unpublished, internal data that I'm now sharing in this post. He said that mobile paid search "looks like much like search advertising did in 2001." 15 to 25 Percent Mobile Paid Search Traffic Between 15 percent and 25 percent of paid search traffic is n [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Marketing: Mobile | Stats: Search Behavior | Stats: Size

Ad network Chitika, which regularly publishes findings from activity on its network, has released some data that show owners of iPhones and iPads search more than Android owners. This is a bit counter-intuitive and unexpected, given how prominent search and the search box are on the homescreen of most Android handsets and how deeply integrated Google is into that experience. Chitika "looked at hundreds of millions of impressions between April 8 and 14 and broke down traffic depending on operating system, search traffic, and the type of search query." The company also broke out local searche [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Android | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Google: Web Search | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Stats: Search Behavior

Marketing firm Slingshot SEO is picking up where Microsoft left off. Five years ago Microsoft/Atlas began trying to educate marketers and the marketplace about the fact that more online sources than the "last click" were responsible for conversions. This was partly an effort to undermine the centrality of Google, which gets lots of credit for driving the final click, and partly an effort to make conversion modeling more sophisticated and reflective of the multiple influences on consumer purchases. This morning Slingshot SEO is releasing a fascinating report (registration required) that also [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats | SEO: General | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

Last week the Pew Internet Project released findings of a survey on search, personalization and targeted advertising. In a nutshell, survey respondents had a very positive view of search and the quality of search results. Yet the majority gave an unequivocal thumbs down to search personalization (and behavioral targeting). This isn't necessarily a contradiction or paradox in the abstract, but it is when you consider that the most popular search engine is moving aggressively in a direction most people say they don't want search to go. Here's our earlier coverage of the survey: Pew Repo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features: Analysis | Google: Personalized Search | Google: Privacy | Google: Search Plus Your World | Google: Web Search | Legal: Privacy | Stats: Popularity | Stats: Search Behavior

Personalized search? Both Google and Bing will tell you that it provides better results. But two-thirds say they don't care. They view personalized search as a "bad thing," a new survey finds. Nearly three-quarters also view gathering data to personalize results to be a privacy invasion. The findings come out of a survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Around 2,000 adults in the US were questioned between January 20 and February 19 of this year as part of a wide-ranging poll about search engine use, though fewer may have answered particular questions. Personalized Sea [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features: Analysis | Google: Personalized Search | Google: Search Plus Your World | Legal: Privacy | Microsoft: Bing | Search Engines: Personalized Search Engines | Search Features: Search History & Personalization | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

Localeze, 15 Miles and comScore released findings from their 5th Local Search Study. The survey of 4,000 US adults (together with behavioral data) documents how consumers search for and find local business information across digital platforms. It's a pretty comprehensive study and there are a great many interesting pieces of data, some of which I've written up here and here. In this article I want to focus on a single finding: 49 percent of smartphone and tablet owners are using apps to find local information. On one level this is unremarkable and makes sense; apps are popular and there are [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Search Engines: Location / Checkin Services | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Stats: comScore | Stats: Popularity | Stats: Search Behavior

Former AdMob executive Jason Spero, who is now Google’s head of mobile sales, took the stage earlier today at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona to offer up some new, global smartphone user survey data and 2012 predictions. The Google-sponsored survey had a sample size of roughly 1,000 respondents in each of the represented countries: US, UK, France, Germany, Spain and Japan. The data reflect that mobile search usage has nearly 100 percent penetration among smartphone owners, most of whom search at least once a week. Though it's not made clear in the data released I assume this [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Google: Web Search | Stats: General | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

Local-mobile ad network xAd released a treasure-trove of data from Q4 2011 this morning. The US-based information is drawn from mobile sites and apps that run its ads and the related user behaviors that xAd observes. These data are interesting in part because xAd has what is probably the largest network offering local search and display advertising outside of Google (AT&T might dispute that claim). The following were the most frequently searched local content categories in Q4: Ad performance reported by xAd exceeds comparable online CTRs for both search and display. The network s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Stats: General | Stats: Search Behavior

This may surprise no one: Google is the leading source of traffic for 23 of the top 30 websites. That's according to Citi analyst Mark Mahaney in a document released yesterday to clients. Based on underlying comScore data, the report analyzes visits to the top five websites in several verticals: Media, Retail, Travel, Auto, Finance and Health. It doesn't discuss the impact or relative position of Facebook at all, possibly because Facebook is not yet a public company. Mahaney points out that Google's retention of the position of top traffic referrer is an accomplishment in a marketplace t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Google: Web Search | Stats: comScore | Stats: General | Stats: Search Behavior | Stats: Size | Top News

Last November Canadian digital agency Mediative (owned by Canada's Yellow Pages Group) released an eye- and click-tracking study focused on Google Places and Google Maps on the PC. We wrote up the results when they were published. Mediative then followed up that study with a similar one focused on the Google Places app on the iPhone. For the iPhone-app study, just published yesterday, Mediative monitored eye- and click-tracking with 12 people in Canada. They ranged in age from 21 to 45. The participants were asked to find places to get a tattoo in each of several Canadian cities. Here's the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

Marketers have had a couple weeks to digest their fourth quarter numbers and assess their successes and failures from a period that can be a whirlwind, particularly in the retail sector. Now, with Google's Q4 earnings report and Yahoo's out, we're getting a chance to compare our own performance to data put out by some of the major agencies and technology platforms. Earlier this month, we released the RKG Digital Marketing Report with this in mind. Our goal is that it serves as a credible benchmark for advertisers who don't enjoy the luxury of viewing results across multiple sites with multi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Search & Analytics | Search Marketing | Stats | Stats: Search Behavior | Stats: Size

The longest search queries are happening on Ask.com, where users average almost five words per search. That's according to research from Chitika. The ad network analyzed search referrals on "hundreds of millions" of impressions across sites in its network between January 9th and 12th. And the longest search referrals -- at an average of 4.81 words -- came from Ask.com. AOL users are at the other end of the spectrum; their user queries average barely above four words, by far the shortest of the five sites that Chitika studied. It makes sense that this would be the case, since Ask.com [...]

Related Topics: Ask: Web Search | Channel: Search Marketing | Search & Society: General | Search Marketing: Search Term Research | Stats: Search Behavior

A couple of Q4 2011 reports released this week from Marin Software and IgnitionOne show, among other things, the dramatic growth of mobile paid search advertising. According to the IgnitionOne document, the "mobile [paid] search ad spend is up 269% YoY and impressions are up 317%." IgnitionOne said that among its retail clients, "Mobile search [  ] accounted for 24% of retailers’ total paid search budgets on Black Friday, compared to 14.2% of the total during all of Q4. This represents enormous growth compared to Q4 2010, when mobile search spend accounted for only 5.2% of total retail p [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Search Marketing: Mobile | Stats: Popularity | Stats: Search Behavior | Stats: Size

A new study from Microsoft Research confirms what most SEOs have known for years—that domain names are a crucial element for capturing clicks and conversions from search results. Unlike what's been published in most search marketing forums, however, this research was not focused on SEO techniques or search engine ranking algorithms, but rather on observed searcher behavior, offering insights about how people actually respond to what's presented to them in search results. The results of this research present a good news/bad news scenario for search marketers. The good news: If you have a c [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

Bing-powered search made small gains in U.S. market share during October, according to the latest Hitwise numbers. Bing gained 3% between September and October, going from 12.8% market share to 13.23%, while Yahoo also rose slightly from 15.27% to 15.39%. Combined, that boosted Bing-powered share among major search engines to 28.62% … still a far cry from Google's estimated 65.38% of the US search market. Meanwhile, more interesting to me is Hitwise's take on search query lengths. In the same news release today, Hitwise estimates that 27.23% of searches were one word long in Octob [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: Hitwise | Stats: Popularity | Stats: Search Behavior