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Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK

Analyst Weblog

Category Archives: Paid search

Paid rates up as ISAs get more competitive

March 31, 2011

As the current financial year comes to a close and FY12 begins on 6 April, consumers are searching for ISAs in order to make the most of their tax free savings. Searches for ISAs have increased by 185% in the... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 04:42 PM | (0)
In Categories Financial Services | Insurance | Paid search

Call of Duty Black Ops fans rejoice at Zombie return

November 09, 2010

At midnight last night thousands of video games fans queued to get their hands on the latest must-have game – Call of Duty: Black Ops. Obviously there were plenty of people who couldn’t buy a copy last night and instead... Continue reading...

Google Instant to highlight the long tail not kill it

September 09, 2010

Google has made some big changes to its search capabilities with the introduction of Google Instant. Search results now appear instantly in real-time as you type making the new Google search incredibly fast. Whilst initially the introduction of autocomplete to... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 10:49 AM | (4) | (0)
In Categories Google | Paid search | Search

Harry Potter fever: Wizarding World theme park, Deathly Hallows, Lego game

July 09, 2010

With the unveiling in June of the Universal theme park, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the movie trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and the release of Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4, it's fair to say that... Continue reading...

Mother’s Day: Woodlands Junior School strikes again

March 16, 2010

A couple of years ago we highlighted the extraordinary case of Woodlands Junior School, the best optimised school website in the UK. It appears high up on the Google SERP for popular seasonal terms such as ‘mothers day’, ‘pancake day’,... Continue reading...

Last minute surge in online retail traffic before VAT increase

January 04, 2010

The UK VAT rate returned to 17.5% on January 1st and, as a result, UK Internet searches related to the change also increased. As the chart below illustrates, searches for our “VAT Increase” portfolio (which includes terms such as ‘vat... Continue reading...

Shop opening times searches up 11% this Christmas

December 30, 2009

Just after Easter we wrote a blog about the popularity of searches for shop opening times / hours. That analysis showed that searches for retailer opening times spiked during the May and August bank holidays, over Easter, and at Christmas... Continue reading...

Video Games searches overtake Mobile Phones following release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

November 20, 2009

UK Internet searches for video games increased by 28% last week following the release of the much hyped and anticipated Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. As the chart below illustrates, Video Games overtook Mobile Phones to become the most... Continue reading...

Searches for climate change and energy efficiency (Blog Action Day)

October 15, 2009

Today is Blog Action Day and, as with last year, Alan Long has beaten me to it with an excellent post on this year’s topic, climate change. I’m taking a similar approach, looking at climate changes related searches in the... Continue reading...

The importance of photo searches

September 29, 2009

Whilst looking through this week’s list of fast moving search terms, one term that caught my eye was ‘great north run photos’. As the chart below illustrates, searches for the term spiked last week (w/e 26/09/09) in line with the... Continue reading...

The role of paid search and comparison sites in the insurance sector

July 14, 2009

The insurance industry relies on paid search traffic more than most other online sectors. During June 2009, 33.0% of all the UK Internet traffic that insurance websites received from search engines came via paid clicks. That paid search rate is... Continue reading...

Apple iPhone 3G S vs Nokia N97

June 18, 2009

The launches on June 19th of two 3G touchscreen phones from the most searched for mobile phone brands in the UK, Apple and Nokia, have created a buzz in the Hitwise office this week. Hitwise UK’s resident gadget expert, Client... Continue reading...

Swine flu searches increase 58-fold

May 05, 2009

UK Internet searches for ‘swine flu’ increased 58-fold last week, making it Britain’s fastest moving search term. Of the 10.9 million distinct search terms we tracked in the UK last week, ‘swine flu’ ranked 20th. As the chart below illustrates,... Continue reading...

Travel industry experiences decline in paid search

April 30, 2009

Last week I highlighted the overall decline in the UK paid search rate over the last 12 months, and focused on the retail sector in particular. I also promised to provide similar analysis for some other industries, so here is... Continue reading...

Budget 2009: paid search tactics

April 27, 2009

As you would expect, last week’s budget received a lot of press attention. UK Internet searches for the term ‘budget’ increased 27-fold between the weeks ending April 18th and 25th. However, as the chart below illustrates, searches for the term... Continue reading...

Online retailers receiving less traffic from paid search, but more from social networks

April 22, 2009

The amount of traffic that online retailers receive from paid search – i.e. from sponsored or paid for links on search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, Live and Ask - has fallen over the last 12 months. During March 2009,... Continue reading...

Robin Goad

Research Director, Hitwise UK.