Hitwise Intelligence - Bill Tancer - North America

Hey Bill,

I'd bet it has a lot to do with their new design they've had for a few months now, which fits in with the whole (Apple) glossy button web2.0 craze. It would be interesting to see if you could separate the stats above and see how ASK.com is doing only with the "tech" crowd online - that is, are they more likely to be leaving the usual Google search and moving to this web2.0 style search?

ASK.com also very heavily displays the different media search options, where google has them in small text links (many people I know have NEVER tried searching on Google for anything other than a plain search). This would promote branding for ASK.com's version of "universal search", where Google is actually falling behind...somehow "simple search" (Google's M.O.) and "universal search" don't mesh well together in users' minds.

Posted by Pinny Cohen | November 1, 2007 10:26 AM

Bill,

In my experience even the most boring albeit highly televised TV ad spots drive additional traffic spikes. There's a very good chance that their DRTV spots had something to do with the increased market share.

The question is how much of any of this market share growth sustainable?

Cezanne

Posted by Search Marketing | November 6, 2007 09:18 AM

Hello Bill,

After working in search engine marketing and web analytics for the past 11 years, I've learned to love the 'Mystery' ever present in any understanding we seek to better interpret spikes, plummets, and the like in website tracking.

To be sure, we can fairly accurately track and understand a lot of what is happening with online traffic. But it's that little bit, that 'Other' sliver in the pie chart, which fails to, seemingly, hold a sure source. I love that exact mystery.

The only thing I enjoy more is the process of seeking after the answer to the mystery, the riddle, the game. We, the fortunate ones, are all paid to play a game every day, which is becoming more and more important in today's business world.

As for the source of Ask.com's recent spike in traffic, perhaps they know, but my guess would be the TV ads are the majority of the answer. I’ve viewed most of their TV ads during prime time, so they’re definitely getting in front of a good amount of people. The ads may be 'boring' to some, but they are straight forward, and it's based on the growing trend of Comparison Shopping -- even if it is a scenario of 'shopping' for a search engine.

Web Analytics World stated yesterday that Hitwise (yes, this very website here) has tracked a 56% rise in Comparison Shopping traffic over the past year.

Perhaps this rapidly growing trend of comparing anything and everything (under the sun) is crossing over mediums and Ask.com's ads are hitting a home run. If they are, then I'm sure we'll eventually hear about the success of this case-study-in-progress.

There's some food for thought. Be well fellow search engine ones.

Posted by M. Herman | November 9, 2007 09:06 AM