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Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Dougherty - North America
Analyst Weblog
Category Archives: Search Strategies
Super Bowl Game Time, Recipes, and Celebrity Bets Searches Rise as Giants-Pats Showdown Approaches
February 03, 2012
The Super Bowl 46 showdown between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots is less than a week away and consumers are going online to seek out game day details, catch up on Super Bowl-related current events, plan... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 11:11 AM
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In Categories Search Strategies | Sports | Super Bowl
Luxury Brand Report Studies New Online Trends
December 09, 2011
Every day, Experian Hitwise clients discover new trends and opportunities from our timely, insightful online consumer behavior database. We are happy to share these insights by having clients post their findings on this blog and today present analysis on the... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 02:20 PM
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In Categories Facebook | Luxury | Retail | Search Strategies | Social Media
May 21 Judgement Day Interest Grows Online
May 20, 2011
Predictions about the end of the world tomorrow, May 21, 2011 (not to be confused with the potential end of the world in 2012, predicted by the Mayan calendar) from Harold Camping, the president of the Family Radio, have been... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 11:13 AM
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In Categories Judgement Day 2011 | Search Strategies
Royal Wedding Fever? US Interest Falls Below UK, Canada and New Zealand
April 28, 2011
The Guardian and The Independent are at loggerheads over whether Americans are bored with the Royal Wedding or utterly enthralled. But which newspaper is on the mark? Judging by Experian Hitwise search data, it seems that neither is quite right.... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 03:12 PM
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In Categories Global Trends | Search Strategies
Optimizing for The Royal Wedding
April 18, 2011
Whilst Kate Middleton and Prince William have asked that those wishing to send wedding gifts refer instead to their Charitable Gift Fund, everyone else seems to view the Royal Wedding as a potential cash cow. From Papa John’s “pizza portrait”... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 05:02 PM
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In Categories Royal Wedding | Search Strategies | Weddings
Valentines eating their hearts … and fruit out
February 18, 2011
What were the popular Valentine’s Day gifts this year? To identify new trends, we’ve taken a look at the top gift related terms that sent traffic to the Experian Hitwise category of Flowers and Gifts leading up to the much... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 10:58 AM
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In Categories Retail | Search Strategies | Shopping and Classifieds | Valentine's Day
iPod Touch and iPad Top Electronics Searches
December 22, 2010
Consumer electronics and gadgets are always popular holiday gifts and this season the iPod Touch, iPad and Amazon's Kindle were among the top search terms for CE products over the past 4 weeks. The analysis is based upon a portfolio... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 03:35 PM
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In Categories Consumer Electronics | Holiday | Search Engines | Search Strategies
Online excitement for Tron Legacy
December 17, 2010
The anxiously awaited (confession – I bought tickets a month ago) sequel to Tron, Tron:Legacy opened in theaters after midnight last night. Naturally, with so much excitement about the movie, many fans were searching for information about Tron:Legacy online in... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 01:04 PM
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In Categories Movies | Search Strategies
Case Study – Social Security Administration
November 05, 2010
The Social Security Administration may not be the first website that comes to mind when thinking about search or social, but these two sources combined accounted for half of the traffic referrals in October 2010. Search engines referred 43% of... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 12:12 PM
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In Categories Acquisition | Facebook | Government | Search Strategies | Social Media
Retailers Captured Increased Black Friday Search Traffic
November 04, 2010
Websites that aggregate Black Friday deals from retailers always start to garner more attention in the weeks building up to the Thanksgiving weekend as consumers start to research upcoming holiday purchases. Early shoppers have already started seeking information around Black... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 05:15 PM
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In Categories Black Friday | Holiday | Retail | Search Strategies | Shopping and Classifieds | Thanksgiving
Search Behavior and Results for Laptops
August 18, 2010
Laptops have become an increasingly popular and necessary Back to School item, so we used the generic term ‘laptops’ to help understand the current search strategies and behavior around this competitive term. Many consumers put significant time and consideration into... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 07:18 PM
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In Categories Back to School | Search Engines | Search Strategies
Heat wave drives online sales of ACs
August 02, 2010
Recently we wrote about the increase in searches for air conditioners during the heat wave affecting many parts of the country, causing the share of search clicks on the term ‘air conditioners’ to increase 268% for the week ending July... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 05:23 PM
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In Categories Appliances & Electronics | Search Strategies | eBay
Back to school searches growing
July 21, 2010
The summer is only half over, but search queries including ‘Back to School’ are on the rise and the share of variations have increased 28% for the week ending July 17, 2010 year-over-year. Over the past 2 years, the peak... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 04:26 PM
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In Categories Back to School | Search Strategies
Paul the Psychic Octopus
July 08, 2010
Quite possibly the first octopus to receive death threats (first from Argentina fans, now German fans), Paul the Octopus (or “Oktopus Orakel”) has catapulted into fame after correctly predicting the winner for all six of the German matches in the... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 02:35 PM
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In Categories Search Strategies
BP’s Paid Search Campaigns
June 15, 2010
Last week, BP announced that the company had purchased keywords related to the oil spill to drive traffic to the BP website. For the week ending June 12, 2010, 47% of all traffic to BP.com was driven by search and... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 11:37 AM
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In Categories Search Strategies
Zhu Zhu Pets are hottest holiday gift
November 30, 2009
One of the hottest products this year is the Zhu Zhu Pet, an electronic pet hamster that is selling out of retailers all over the country. Searches jumped for ‘zhu zhu’ related-terms last week as compared to the previous week:... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 06:37 PM
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In Categories Holiday | Hot Products | Search Strategies
Analyzing the Maclaren Stroller Recall
November 18, 2009
Last week parents were horrified to learn about a recall on Maclaren umbrella strollers due to multiple cases of children’s fingers being amputated. The volume of traffic to the Maclaren website jumped 9x in volume on Monday, Nov. 9, 2009... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 07:24 PM
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In Categories Recalls | Search Strategies
Black Friday and Cyber Monday Predictions
November 02, 2009
Holiday projections are out and many are predicting a gloomy holiday season for retailers. The NRF forecasts a 1% decline growth in total retail sales for the 2009 holiday season, totaling $437.6 billion. The online channel is poised to fare... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 06:11 PM
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In Categories Black Friday | Email | Holiday | Retail | Search Strategies | Shopping and Classifieds | Thanksgiving
Balloon boy floats into popular searches
October 21, 2009
Americans are fascinated with the story of the ‘balloon boy’ as facts unfold in the highly unusual tale of a boy floating away in a mylar balloon - only to be discovered in the attic three days later. Searches jumped... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 02:09 PM
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In Categories News and Media | Search Strategies
Back to School Season Starts Soon
June 18, 2009
School is barely out for the summer, but the Back to School season is right around the corner again. Search queries that include the phrase ‘back to school’ begin to ramp up during the month of July, peak in early... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 12:05 PM
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In Categories Back to School | Search Strategies
Initial Bing Stats for US and Canada
June 10, 2009
Last week, Microsoft launched the new version of its search engine, Bing and initial interest has been high due to a major advertising campaign to drive awareness, extensive media coverage, and of course, curiosity. In the US, Bing ranked 17th... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 04:34 PM
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In Categories Bing | Search Engines | Search Strategies
Search Referrals and Organic Traffic Rising
May 15, 2009
As a companion piece to the post by my colleague Heather Hopkins, I thought it would be interesting to take a step back and look at the overall impact of search upon specific industries. For the majority of categories measured... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 12:19 PM
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In Categories Search Strategies
Michelle Obama’s Impact on Fashion
May 07, 2009
Ever since First Lady Michelle Obama hit the press circuit, there has been a fascination with her clothing choices. Mrs. Obama’s selections from retailers like J Crew, White House Black Market and Talbots, that are affordable and obtainable by many... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 01:04 PM
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In Categories Fashion | Retail | Search Strategies | Shopping and Classifieds
Last Minute Mother’s Day Planning
April 30, 2009
The countdown is on for retailers looking to capture Mother’s Day spending with 10 shopping days left (11 if you are the same-day delivery type, if so – buy online, pick-up in-store is for you). According to the National Retail... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 03:06 PM
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In Categories Email | Mother's Day | Retail | Search Engines | Search Strategies | Shopping and Classifieds
Who Benefits from Circuit City Closure Online
April 09, 2009
Back in January, Circuit City announced ceasing all operations, so we thought it would be interesting to analyze which retailers have benefited from their exit in the market. The brand Circuit City is very well known and drove a significant... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 05:40 PM
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In Categories Retail | Search Strategies | Shopping and Classifieds
Craigslist Top Search Term Last Week
March 20, 2009
For the first time in three years, searches for ‘craigslist’ surpassed ‘myspace,’ highlighting the increasing popularity of online classifieds during the economic downturn.U.S. searches on the term “craigslist” have increased 105 percent for the week ending March 14, 2009, compared... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 05:55 PM
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In Categories Search Strategies | Social Networking
March Madness Search Strategies
March 20, 2009
It goes without saying that during the NCAA Basketball Tournament, visits will increase to the websites that provide coverage of the games – particularly on those that offer live video during work hours. As the tournament gets underway, we decided... Continue reading...
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Posted by Heather Dougherty at 02:43 PM
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In Categories NCAA | Search Strategies
