Google And Yahoo! Drive Referrals To Retail Websites
Google and Yahoo! search’s share of the search market is growing and driving up the share of referrals from search engines to retail websites, according to new data from Hitwise UK.
Hitwise says that Google powered 78% of UK internet searches in the four weeks to October 21, up 9% year-on-year, whilst Yahoo! took the number 2 spot based on share of executed UK searches with 7.7% of the search market.
Taken together Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com powered 96.6% of all UK internet searches, up 2% year-on-year.
The Hitwise research reveals that the share of referrals from search engines has been increasing to key e-commerce categories, including travel agencies, appliances and electronics and insurance.
Travel Agencies received 39% of upstream visits from search engines, up 7% in the past six months, whilst the appliances and electronics category received 36% of upstream visits from search engines, up 9% in the past six months.
Meanwhile, the business and finance – insurance category received 35% of upstream visits from Search Engines, up 14% in the past six months.
Hitwise adds that many leading UK websites receive little to no search traffic from paid listings, with MySpace, Bebo and the BBC all receiving less than 1% of their search traffic from paid listings.
The research shows that whilst there appears to be no indication that paid search is a defining factor for a top ranking based on share of internet visits, leading retailers tend to engage in at least some paid search activity.
Heather Hopkins, vice president of research for Hitwise UK, said: “Consumers are increasingly using search engines to navigate the web, increasing the importance of search engines as a source of referrals for retailers.
“Google and Yahoo! search in particular are seeing strong growth in their share of the UK search market and their share of referrals to online retailers. Growth for these search engines seems to be organic, driven in part by toolbar usage but also growing familiarity with the Google and Yahoo! brands.”
Hitwise UK: www.hitwise.co.uk