February 26, 2008

Google: Does Search Data Indicate a Recession?

The news is buzzing this morning, starting with a report from UBS that alleges that Google's paid clicks are down in January. Analysts from a number of firms have been speculating that this may be a sign that a slowing economy is affecting search.

Not so fast.

If a recession is in fact affecting search, we should see a drop in the amount of traffic going from Google to retail sites (our Shopping & Classifieds category). The following chart shows the percentage of traffic over the last three years actually increasing.

As you can see, Google traffic to retail, on a monthly basis, is on the increase compared to previous years. If we focus in on daily data (year-over-year comparison) we see that Google traffic to retail is also up on a daily basis when we compare January/February 2007 with 2008.

Posted by Bill Tancer at 01:42 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (3)
Posted to Search Engines

February 01, 2008

Microsoft and Yahoo!: Putting the Offer in Perspective

Addendum: There was an error on the properties chart below, percentages for the maps category were transcribed improperly.

This morning, as reported by CNN, Microsoft made an unsolicited $44.6 billion stock and cash bid for Yahoo!. To put this potential deal in perspective, we've assembled some Hitwise statistics on MSN, Yahoo! and Google.

If we combine the top properties for the three companies, the combined market share of visits (U.S.) for Microsoft and Yahoo! would be 15.6% of all Internet visits, with Google at 7.7% for the week ending January 26, 2008.

But if we consider only search volume, the picture is very different. For the four weeks in January 2008, Google accounted for 65.98% of all executed searches in the U.S., while combining executed searches for Yahoo! Search and MSN Search would amount to 27.84% of executed searches for the same time period.

While the deal would have limited impact on Google's continued dominance of search, the combined content of Yahoo! and MSN properties yields an impressive list of top sites by industry category. In the table below, we've listed where Google, Yahoo! and MSN properties appear within the top five positions by industry category for U.S. Internet visits for the week ending January 26, 2008.

Posted by Bill Tancer at 12:47 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (4)
Posted to Search Engines

January 29, 2008

Florida Primary: What Internet Data Says

Let me start by reiterating that an Internet visit does not equal a primary vote. That being said, there is still some very interesting insight to be gained by looking at visits to sites within the Hitwise Lifestyle - Politics category from Internet users in Florida.

The table below measures both the volume (who received the most visits from Internet users in Florida) and percentage (for their own site, regardless of that sites market share, who received the most visits from Florida Internet users as a percentage of their own site visits) for the official websites of Republican presidential candidates.

We know from past primaries that Ron Paul visitors tend to be hyper-internet active and should probably be discounted in terms of primary votes, that leaves Romney, Huckabee and McCain, in that order, as the front-runners in Internet visits.

The percent visit column highlights the challenge with Giuliani's strategy. On a percentage basis he has the largest portion of Florida visitors to his site compared with other state visitors, yet his lack of visibility in other states puts him down in the 66th position for overall Florida volume.

Posted by Bill Tancer at 01:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted to Politics

January 21, 2008

Most Depressing Day of the Year?

A researcher from Cardiff University claims that the third Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year based on an equation that factors; weather, credit card debt from the holidays and failed New Year's resolutions. While I'm all in favor of a good formula, I was a little skeptical that our emotions could be reduced to these three variables. In this week's TIME column I discuss some interesting findings. The chart below didn't make it into the column.

You can see that spikes in searches on "depression" that happen in late November (we drew this chart limiting it to "depression" searches to the Health and Medical category to account for "great depression" searches). Visits to the official websites of leading anti-depressant medications show that they spike a few weeks in advance of "depression" searches, possibly a sign of pre-medication before the holidays? And the good news -- depression (based on searches and visits to drug sites) appears to be on the decline.

Posted by Bill Tancer at 01:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted to Health and Medical