Hitwise Search Terms Service Launched

Online competitive intelligence service Hitwise have announced the launch of a new service, Search Terms. The service monitors searches made across 70 of the world's most popular search engines by more than 8 million UK Internet users.

Businesses making use of the service will be able to identify what keywords their competitors are receiving traffic from, which should help to optimise their own keyword selection. Moreover, they can view those keywords that resulted in users actually clicking through to a web site. As search engine optimisation and paid keyword campaigns become increasingly popular (see DRNO, 16/7/'03 Yahoo! Buys, Shakes Up Search Market), detailed information on how consumers use search engines is of growing importance to marketers. Data is available for more than 60,000 global web sites.

Two types of reports are available within Search Terms:

1. Search Terms clicked on to find a web site, for example 8.09% of users who clicked through to www.opodo.uk searched for 'cheap flights'
2. Search Terms clicked on for an industry - for example, 2.21% of users searching for car manufacturers searched on the keyword 'audi'

The Search Terms tool is offered through the Hitwise Competitive Intelligence Service and the company envisages its use alongside its existing ranking and online performance charting tools to develop and instantly measure the success and impact of clients' own search engine campaigns.

According to Simon Chamberlain, General Manager of Hitwise UK, 'This new tool is yet another way Hitwise can help businesses better understand how their competitors are using search marketing programmes to attract customers'.

By way of an example, here are tables for two sectors covered recently on DRNO, travel and shopping, which accounted for 6% and 7% of all Internet searches respectively, based on searches conducted over a rolling 12 week period.

Most popular travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Share
1	Easyjet	2.35%
2	Cheap flights	2.10%
3	Ryanair	1.65%
4	Holidays	1.46%
5	british airways	1.35%
6	cheap holidays	1.26%
7	flights	1.11%
8	multimap	1.06%
9	train times	0.79%
10	teletext holidays	0.75%

Most popular shopping search terms

Rank	Search Term	Share
1	ebay	6.57%
2	argos	2.20%
3	amazon	1.74%
4	ebay uk	1.19%
5	tesco	0.97%
6	b&q	0.93%
7	comet	0.89%
8	homebase	0.78%
9	www.ebay.co.uk	0.78%
10	Currys	0.76%

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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