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Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - UK

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eBay, Bebo, Games and Weather Top UK Search Terms in 2006

January 29, 2007

Today we announced our top search terms for 2006 in the UK and I wanted to share the data as well as add to it. For those of you very familiar with consumer search data, it will come as no surprise that the highest volume search terms across the web continue to be brand searches, highlighting that consumers are using search engines to navigate the web. The top search terms in the UK in 2006 were "ebay", "bebo" and "argos". The top generic (i.e. non-branded, non-navigational) term was "games", ranking in at #28, followed by "weather", at #31.

The following table shows the top 10 terms overall and the top 10 generic terms.

In the US, the term "lyrics" made it into the top 10, but otherwise, the top terms in the US were also navigational. Some people think that this denotes a lack of sophistication. I think it's got more to do with laziness and safety. I use the search box in my toolbar to navigate the web. It's easier to type in "ebay" hit enter and then click the first result than to type www.ebay.co.uk and hope I didn't mix up the URL. Also, consumers may feel safer operating within a familiar environment, in this case the search engine.

The biggest difference between the US and the UK search data in 2006 was MySpace. MySpace related searches made up five of the top ten search terms across all categories in the US, whilst the highest MySpace term ranked #13 in the UK. This doesn't mean that UK consumers are not interested in social networking sites. Note that "bebo" was the #2 term in the UK in 2006.

Here are some tables with the top search terms for the movies and television categories.

Also, I should mention that my spate of holidays has drawn to a close. I should be posting more regularly moving forward. Thanks for your patience!

Posted by Heather Hopkins at 02:33 PM | (0) | (0)
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