Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - UK
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September 28, 2006
Paid and Organic Search: Profile of MoneySupermarket (Post 1 of 3)
This week we announced the launch of Search Intelligence 4.0 in which we will begin to report on the paid and organic split in website search terms in the UK and Australia (other markets to follow). In a series of three posts (I am all about series this week), I will provide some analysis using the data. In this first post, I will look at MoneySupermarket, the #12 ranked Business & Finance site based on share of UK visits in the week to 23rd September 2006.
MoneySupermarket received 33.89% of its traffic from search last week, 79% of which came from Google (combined UK and .com properties). Hitwise captured 4,681 unique search terms sending visits to the site in the past four weeks from our sample of 8.43 million UK internet users. In the past four weeks, 60% of MoneySupermarket's search traffic has been paid for and 40% came from clicks on organic links.
It is the ability to report the paid and organic split that is new. For each term, we can also see the rate at which consumers reached the site from a paid or organic link and rank the search terms sending visits to the site from either paid and organic traffic.
The top term overall sending visits to MoneySupermarket in the past four weeks was "car insurance". This was also the top paid term, measured by the volume of visits from paid traffic. As the table below illustrates, the search term "car insurance" accounted for 9.33% of all site traffic from search and the rate at which consumers came to the site on a paid listing (as opposed to an organic listing) was 81.01%.
I filtered these results by search engine and was able to see that on Google UK, the paid rate increased slightly to 82.05% for searches for "car insurance". I have been watching the search engine results page (SERP) on Google UK closely over the past few weeks on searches for "car insurance". MoneySupermarket has always appeared within the top four paid listings, and today was second. (Note that in the Google SERP, the listing for InsureSupermarket redirects to Money Supermarket). When I did the search this morning, MoneySupermarket appeared at the top of the second page of organic results. When I selected "Pages from the UK", MoneySupermarket's listing appeared at the bottom of the first page of results.
The term "car insurance" from organic listings on Google UK accounted for 1.77% of site visits from search to MoneySupermarket. We often believe that being "below the fold" on the SERP (being below the first four or five listings) means you are not in consideration. It is good to note that MoneySupermarket's position hovering between the bottom of the first page of results the top of the second page still yielded a good chunk of traffic. Also, SEOs will be pleased to note that 17.95% of visits to MoneySupermarket from searches for "car insurance" on Google came from that organic listing.
Can we tell if consumers prefer organic or paid listings and if this varies by the type of query? Not yet, but let's look at two more examples to try to better understand consumer search behaviour and preferences.
Branded terms offer a really interesting example to study. Consumers clicked on the paid listing on Google UK 63.86% of the time for searches for "money supermarket" in the past four weeks. I have been watching this term closely as well and each time I've checked, MoneySupermarket has had a paid listing at the top of the SERP followed by an organic listing. Any of you questioning why the firm is paying to appear for their brand should note that several competitors appear in the sponsored listings on this SERP as well. Consumers in this case seem to prefer the paid listing slightly. This is likely because it is first, it is highlighted in blue and it is pretty obvious to the searcher that it is the listing he's after.
The term "loans" is the 5th highest search term sending visits to MoneySupermarket. From Google UK, roughly half (50.86%) of visits from searches for that term are from paid traffic. On the Google UK SERP, MoneySupermarket today appeared first in the organic listings and 8th in the paid listings (7th when filtered for UK results only).
In the next two posts on this topic, I'll explore this issue of whether consumers prefer paid or organic results. It will be interesting to see if there are any differences by industry as well as by site. Stay tuned...
Post 2: Profile of MoneySupermarket
Post 3: The Sun Ahead fo the Curve?
Posted by Heather Hopkins at 12:05 PM
Posted to Search
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Comments
I've always wondered why the MoneySupermarkets of this world havn't plugged a news style service into their sites, which offer advice and tips within the different categories.
Run using a blog style set-up this would naturally help their organic search results.
Posted by: Craig McGinty at September 27, 2006 11:41 PM
This "series" is quite interesting.
Your chart is cool, but it could be so much better. Without having a column on moneysupermarket's organic rank for each search term, it is hard to evaluate whether the split is logical or not. If a they are the number one organic rank for a search term, they should have a much lower paid ratio. If they are not on the first page, they should have a much higher paid ratio. Right? It would be cool to see some sort of graphic on how that moves it -- you're really close.
Brian.
Posted by: Brian Halligan at October 6, 2006 10:10 AM
MoneySuperMarket have been dropped (Read BANNED) by Google for the term car insurance.
Heather, Any chance you could run those numbers again to see what difference it makes!
Posted by: Insurance Blog at May 14, 2007 02:31 AM
