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MySpace Tops in Sending Google Traffic
May 09, 2006
At Search Engine Strategies in New York earlier this year, I made, what I thought was a bold prediction. When asked what was the biggest threat to the dominance of the top search engines, I responded by saying that the threat would come from an unlikely place, social networking... specifically from myspace.com. At the time, myspace.com had registered over a 1000% growth rate in market share in less then a year (myspace.com is currently ranked 4th in market share of visits in the U.S.). Others at the conference were quick to point out, that the shortcoming of my prediction was that myspace.com currently does not have its own search offering.
Fast forward to yesterday. I had an email request from Bambi Francisco (who I had the pleasure to interview with in a piece on video search). Bambi was curious as to the percentage of traffic myspace.com supplied to the major search engines (see her article here). After running a few reports, I was somewhat shocked to see that myspace.com was the #1 upstream provider of traffic to Google, supplying an astonishing 8.2% of all traffic (the next closest provider was MSN @ 4.0%!). The chart below illustrates the percentage upstream from myspace.com to Google.
Going back to the beginning of last year myspace provided less than 1% of all Google traffic.
While myspace.com still doesn't have its own search offering, the shear volume of traffic sent to external search engines could be directed internally with the right acquisition and promotion of its own search offering. The battle between search, portal offerings and consumer generated media is beginning to shape up. Will the search engines answer with promotion of their CGM properities? Will myspace.com leverage its massive search distribution? I'm glad I have a front row seat for this one!
Posted by Bill Tancer at 05:43 PM
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Links to weblogs that reference this entry:
- Consumer Generated Media Sends Traffic To Google (Backbone Blogging Survey)
Bill Tancer from Hitwise has a very interesting post about the volume of traffic sent to Google from MySpace.com social communities, "MySpace Tops In sending Google traffic." 8.2% of all inbound web traffic to Google is from MySpace.com, and that's... [Read More] - Another Hitwise: MySpace Sends 8.2% of Traffic to Google, Implications (WebMetricsGuru)
One feature about HitWise is the ability to see where people come from before they arrive on a site and where they once they leave a site. With my house plan clients I was able to see, according to a... [Read More] - Another Hitwise: MySpace Sends 8.2% of Traffic to Google, Implications (John Battelle's Searchblog)
Wow. I love infoporn. I have a hunch that Mr. Murdoch is thinking hard about this graph: From the Hitwise blog: The chart (above) illustrates the percentage upstream from myspace.com to Google. Going back to the beginning of last year myspace provided... [Read More] - MySpace : place au pouvoir des utilisateurs (Carl Hallard)
Ou comment l addition de tous les profils de myspace, de tous les contenus créés par les utilisateurs représentent en moins d'un an 8,2% du traffic de Google !!! La route vers une Long Tail culturelle et une Long Tail [Read More]
Comments
Couldn't this be from AdSense clicks and not actually searches? Given the recent press about the 'quality' of MySpace traffic, that's probably the more likely scenario, no?
http://www.jensense.com/archives/2006/05/myspacecom_and.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/business/yourmoney/23myspace.html?ei=5090&en=68344369c2b006ac&ex=1303444800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
Posted by Jarid | May 11, 2006 08:45 AM
Bill -
Long time no talk - hope all is well.
Wow, big numbers. When you say that MySpace was the "#1 upstream provider of traffic to Google, supplying an astonishing 8.2% of all traffic", I assume this means that Google is then next visited site after a myspace visit, or does it mean that MySpace users are clicking on a link on Myspace or doing a search from search boxes on myspace. If the former, then it stands to reason that MySpace is close to "#1" traffic provider since MySpace has astounding amounts of traffic.
Given that MySpace already has a search box that defaults to web search (powered by Yahoo) and as you show many folks go to Google rather than use the MySpace search box, the opportunity for MySpace may be minimal since the best they could probably do is convince Google to power the MySpace search box and keep more members searching the web from MySpace. In the end, I seriously doubt that MySpace could provide a better search experience than the biggies.
Two more questions for you:
* What % of Yahoo!'s traffic originates at MySpace?
* What % of Google's traffic originates at Yahoo!? (I expect they are number 3 behind MSN!)
Posted by Kevin Berk | May 11, 2006 02:12 PM
Joe, to your question, the top 5 downstream sites for myspace are: 1) blogs.myspace.com 2)www.google.com 3)music.myspace.com 4)www.yahoo.com and 5)www.photobucket.com
Look for some future posts on myspace user behaviors.
-Bill
Posted by Bill Tancer | May 11, 2006 03:12 PM
Jared, to your point, Hitwise reports clickstream based on domains visited. In the example of Overture (Yahoo! Search Marketing) listings within mypace, we would report on the visit to myspace and if, an Overture listings were clicked, then on the visit to that resulting URL. Hope that helps.
-Bill
Posted by Bill Tancer | May 11, 2006 03:19 PM
Kevin,
Great to hear from you. I agree that just incorporating search may not launch Myspace past Google, Yahoo! and MSN, what I think poses a competitive threat to the big three is that Myspace has become the new "home base" for internet users, more so than the portal offering that search engines are building out. The comment about myspace incorporating their own search was aimed at what Google may possibly loose in upstream visits if a myspace search became the new hip way to search the internet (currently myspace search shows little more than a group of sponsored listings).
To your other questions, Yahoo! Search receives 1.4% of its traffic from Myspace, Google receives 4% from MSN and 3.5% from Yahoo!
-Bill
Posted by Bill Tancer | May 11, 2006 03:28 PM
MY Space should in fact develop not only its own Search Engine, but its own Directory and Sponsor Links.
The Search Field should be as competative and Varied as reasonably practical.
As an alternative to starting a Search Engine, MYSpace could consider becoming a META Search Engine - compiling Google Yahoo MSN & ASK SERPS with varying degrees of emphasis.
eg: Google SERPs 50% - Yahoo 25% - MSN 20% - ASK 5%
This would make an significant impact on Search
Posted by Search Engines WEB | May 12, 2006 05:22 PM
Hello. A prior comment poster had asked the question:
"When you say that MySpace was the "#1 upstream provider of traffic to Google, supplying an astonishing 8.2% of all traffic", I assume this means that Google is then next visited site after a myspace visit, or does it mean that MySpace users are clicking on a link on Myspace or doing a search from search boxes on myspace?"
Unless I missed it, I don't see the answer to which alternative is correct. Could you give or point to the answer? Thank you. Very interesting blog by the way.
Posted by anon | May 12, 2006 06:57 PM
For the myspace demographics (16-26) google means search and i dont think myspace owning a search engine would change that behaviour.
So the best way for myspace to monetize this is just to put a google branded search box (plain old adsense for search box) in its site instead of the current yahoo powered box.
This would instantly add a additional revenue of 128 million or so (80% profit share of 8% of google's US revenue of 2 billion)
Posted by Gopi | May 12, 2006 10:29 PM
anon, Hitwise measures clickstream data by the succession of URLs that users visit, so your first assumption is correct... 8.2% of visitors to myspace.com were on the Google domain prior to visiting myspace (not necessarily navigating by links). Hope that helps. - Bill
Posted by Bill Tancer | May 13, 2006 08:09 AM
Gopi says ....
"So the best way for myspace to monetize this is just to put a google branded search box (plain old adsense for search box) in its site instead of the current yahoo powered box". And his $128M in Revs may seem areasonable quarterly return.
My reasoning is a little more complex although I may be guilty of this myself, by confusing a situation. Anyhow, an answer is explained in my comment, here:
http://mediastockblog.com/article/9409
Nice discussion & thanks.
:)
Ross
Posted by Ross | May 14, 2006 12:56 PM
for the week ending yesterday, 8.72% of Ebay's traffic originated from Google.
Posted by Bill Tancer | May 15, 2006 07:52 AM
Given the demographics of the MySpace user, their likelihood to convert for many of the advertisers who might want to advertise may be low. For others it may be high.
So, rolling out a MySpace search product is a sticky challenge. We have seen the conversion rates of component parts of each engine?s ppc traffic to vary significantly, even month to month.
http://conversionindex.did-it.com/
Posted by Kevin Lee | May 26, 2006 12:39 PM
What about the opposite #'s?
What % of Google's traffic goes to MySpace?
Do you know the most searched for keywords in the past 90 days?
4. myspace
7. myspace.com
32. myspace layouts
65. my space
78. www.myspace.com
Posted by Hans A. Koch | May 27, 2006 02:15 AM
So, per the figures shown up, I guess some propper filling up to the grid's slots below would highlight the best investing opportunity for each of the five companies ( based on the traffic generation factor )
Generator
of %
Traffic
Yahoo MSN Google MySpace Ebay
Yahoo 3.5%
MSN 4%
Google 8.2% 8.72%
MySpace 1.4%
Ebay
bil
Posted by Bilal Zaiter | May 28, 2006 03:21 AM
What about the opposite #'s?
What % of Google's traffic goes to MySpace?
Do you know the most searched for keywords in the past 90 days?
4. myspace
7. myspace.com
32. myspace layouts
65. my space
78. www.myspace.com
Posted by Hans Koch | May 29, 2006 04:50 AM
Bill,
For your comment: 8.2% of visitors to myspace.com were on the Google domain prior to visiting myspace (not necessarily navigating by links).
Should it be the following? 8.2% of visitors to myspace.com will go to Google domain after visiting myspace
Posted by Yong Liu | June 21, 2006 09:59 PM
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If MySpace is the number one upstream to Google I imagine they are number one for a lot of other sites as well. Where else do MySpace users go?
Posted by joe banner | May 10, 2006 05:14 PM