October 26, 2005

Searcher Interest in Blogs - From Knitting to Lawn Mower Racing

Here in the online marketing world, we've been using blogs for quite some time. We're aware of what Technorati is doing, and many of us read the Search Engine Watch blog and John Battelle's Searchblog, and others that keep us informed of industry trends. Ad Age reported this week that workers will spend 2.2% of labor force hours reading and posting to blogs in 2005. According to Technorati, the number of blogs has been doubling every 5 months for the past 3 years. Hitwise data shows that searches for "blog" and "blogs" are up 80% and 149%, respectively, when comparing the week ending October 22, 2005 versus the week ending October 23, 2004. Surely all those blogs aren't work-related. What is the general internet audience searching for regarding blogs?

Hitwise captured 1,171 keywords containing "blogs" and 4,377 keywords containing "blog." In reviewing these lists, what struck me was the juxtaposition of fun and seriousness. From "celebrity baby blog" and "nfl cheerleader blog" to "conservative blogs" and "pentecostal blogs," searchers seem to be looking for something to inspire them, whatever form that may take. Some of the more weighty queries included the Lunaville blog and Katrina blogs. Here are some of my favorites: "lawn mower racing blogs," "knitting blogs," "philosophy blogs," "pink is the new blog," "paranormal blogs," "blogs about guavas," "janitorial blog," "food canning blogs," "how to make money with blogs," "women's hair loss blog," "hosiery blog," and "ex-wife revenge blog." It seems just after finding out "what is a blog" searchers start looking for blogs that match their interests, however niche they might be.

Posted by LeeAnn Prescott at 02:33 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/64.

Comments

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)