Sydney, Australia- March, 2010 - Experian Hitwise today released a monthly data report that reveals an increase in Google’s dominance of the Australian search market.
Google Australia accounted for 74.61 per cent and Google.com 12.65 per cent of all Australian searches conducted during February 2010. Overall accounting for 87.26 of the local search market.
“These results highlight Google’s continued market dominance that looks set to continue as no substantial challengers have emerged in the past year,” said Alan Long, Experian Hitwise Research Director for APAC. “Our research team continually monitors search engine performance and it is more likely we will see competition for mass audiences arise from the Social Networking sector than from new entrants in the Search Engine industry,
While Google remain the dominant search engine, opportunities for marketers are still to be found on other Search Engines. Focusing marketing efforts across a number of Search Engines allows for marketers to amortise and lower their acquisition costs.
“To future proof their marketing efforts businesses need to closely monitor Bing and other competing sources to chart their impact on Google and its dominance of the search market. As the spread of search engines diversifies businesses must ensure they focus marketing efforts across the different sites in order to remain competitive,” added Long.
Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories.
“Internet users are exhibiting a growing reliance on the results generated through online search tools to determine where they source information,” said Long. “This highlights the need for businesses to continue to develop and enhance their visibility online and maintain presence in search engines through tactics such as SEO.”
Experian Hitwise’s latest research also considered the current online landscape and attention being paid to different industries online.
“When we compared search results from February 2010 with February 2009, Travel, Food and Beverage and Aviation categories showed the largest increases in their share of upstream traffic coming directly from search engines,” said Long. “This trend is significant as we begin to see greater consumer confidence reemerge following the GFC. The strains around disposable income are beginning to slacken and as a result we are seeing a renewed interest in the travel and tourism sector.”
Another major trend emerging is the use of more detailed search queries – with those averaging five to more than eight words long increasing by 2.14 per cent.
“The increase in search term length indicates greater sophistication in the use of search engines,” said Long. “Australian Internet users are becoming more specific in their requests, providing a real challenge for search engines to continually improve their responses and marketers to adopt SEO strategies accordingly.”
Figure 1.1 - Percentage of Australian Searches among leading search engines providers
| Search Engine Domain | February 2010 | January 2010 | Month over Month Relative Change | |
| 1 | www.google.com.au | 74.61% | 72.59% | 2.8% |
| 2 | www.google.com |
12.65% | 14.34% | 11.7% |
| 3 | search.yahoo.com | 4.45% | 4.43% | 0.5% |
| 4 | www.bing.com | 4.05% | 4.26% | -4.8% |
| 5 | au.search.yahoo.com | 2.63% | 2.87% | -8.5% |
Note: data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending 27 February 2010 and 30 January 2010) from Experian Hitwise sample of 3 million Australian Internet users. Figures are for web searches only.
Source: Experian Hitwise
For more information contact:
Cathy Fleetwood
n2n Communications
(02) 9213 2312
cfleetwood@n2n.com.au
Media Contact:
Georgia Lennon
Marketing Director, ANZ
+612 8907 7218
georgia.lennon@au.experian.com
About Experian Hitwise
Experian Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Experian Hitwise gives marketers a competitive advantage by providing daily insights on how 25 million Internet users around the world interact with more than 1 million websites. This external view helps companies grow and protect their businesses by identifying threats and opportunities as they develop. Experian Hitwise has more than 1,500 clients across numerous sectors, including financial services, media, travel and retail.
Experian Hitwise (FTS:EXPN), www.experianplc.com, operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and Brazil. More information about Experian Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.co.nz.
For up-to-date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Research Blog at www.ilovedata.com and Hitwise Data Centre at www.hitwise.com/nz/resources/data-centre.
About Experian
Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients in more than 65 countries. The company helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also helps individuals to check their credit report and credit score, and protect against identity theft.
Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended 31 March 2009 was $3.9 billion. Experian employs approximately 15,000 people in 40 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; Costa Mesa, California; and São Paulo, Brazil.
For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com.