Gasta Tech News: Hitwise Monthly Report
New York, N.Y., Oct. 19, 2009 - Experian® Hitwise® announced today that Google search properties accounted for 80.46 percent of all Canadian searches conducted in the 12 weeks ending Oct. 3, 2009. Yahoo! search properties, Bing search properties and Ask search properties received 7.99 percent, 7.65 percent and 3.09 percent, respectively.
The remaining 46 search engines in the Experian Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1 percent of Canadian searches.
Percentage of Canadian searches among leading search engine providers
Domain August 2009 September 2009 Month-over-month percent change
Google search properties 79.96% 80.46% 1%
Yahoo! search properties 8.38% 7.99% -5%
Bing search properties* 8.10% 7.65% -6%
Ask search properties 2.78% 3.09% 11%
Note: Data is based on 12-week rolling periods (ending Oct. 3, 2009, and Aug. 29, 2009) from the Experian Hitwise sample of 100,000 Canadian Internet users. The percentages for the search properties include the .ca and .com domains.
*Includes executed searches on Bing, Live.com and MSN search but does not include searches on Club.Live.com
Source: Experian Hitwise
Longer searches increase this past month
Searches averaging five to more than eight words in length increased 1 percent between August and September 2009. Searches of eight or more words increased 3 percent. The same time period showed that shorter search queries - those averaging one to four words long - were flat from month to month. Searches of two words comprised the majority of searches, amounting to 25.73 percent of all queries.
Monthly U.S. keyword breakdown by percentage of clicks
Subject August 2009 September 2009 Month-over-month percent change
One word 25.53% 25.29% -1%
Two words 25.86% 25.73% -1%
Three words 20.68% 20.64% 0%
Four words 12.47% 12.64% 1%
Five words 7.00% 7.09% 1%
Six words 3.76% 3.78% 1%
Seven words 2.04% 2.08% 2%
More than eight words 2.66% 2.74% 3%
Note: Data is based on all searches conducted on all search engines on a 12-week rolling period (ending Oct. 3, 2009, and Aug. 29, 2009) from the Experian Hitwise sample of 100,000 Canadian Internet users.
Source: Experian Hitwise
Search Engines top-visited category
Experian Hitwise separates Web sites into more than 165 industry categories, and the Search Engines category came out on top, capturing 28.18 percent of all Canadian Internet visits in September 2009. The Business and Finance and Entertainment categories received the next-highest number of visits, with 15.02 percent and 14.82 percent, respectively. The categories that received the largest gain from month to month were the Sports-Fantasy category, increasing 157 percent; the Community - Humanitarian category, with a 150 percent increase; and the Computers and Internet - Internet Advertising category, increasing 114 percent.
Top 10 most popular Canadian Internet categories
Category August 2009 September 2009 Month-over-month percent change
Search Engines 28.18% 25.84% -8%
Business and Finance 15.02% 14.60% -3%
Entertainment 14.82% 13.44% -9%
Portal Frontpages 7.05% 11.50% 63%
Social Networking and Forums 10.84% 9.41% -13%
Multimedia 10.09% 9.07% -10%
Banks and Financial Institutions 8.48% 8.12% -4%
Shopping and Classifieds 7.04% 6.63% -6%
News and Media 7.27% 6.62% -9%
Email Services 4.57% 4.09% -10%
Note: Parent categories were used except for Computers and Internet, where we used the subcategories Search Engines, Social Networking and Forums, and Email Services. Data is based on 12-week rolling periods (ending Oct. 3, 2009, and Aug. 29, 2009) from the Experian Hitwise sample of 100,000 Canadian Internet users.
Source: Experian Hitwise
About Experian Hitwise
Experian Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Experian Hitwise gives marketers a competitive advantage by providing daily insights on how 25 million Internet users around the world interact with more than 1 million Web sites. This external view helps companies grow and protect their businesses by identifying threats and opportunities as they develop. Experian Hitwise has more than 1,500 clients across numerous sectors, including financial services, media, travel and retail.
Experian Hitwise (FTS:EXPN), www.experianplc.com, operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and Brazil. More information about Experian Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com/ca.
For up-to-date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Research Blog and Hitwise Data Center.
About Experian
Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients in more than 65 countries. The company helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also helps individuals to check their credit report and credit score and protect against identity theft.
Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended March 31, 2009, was $3.9 billion. Experian employs approximately 15,000 people in 40 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; Costa Mesa, California; and São Paulo, Brazil.
For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com.
