Robin Goad from Hitwise: Organic Search vs paid Listings. A subject close to my heart

Posted on October 4, 2007 by Simon Wharton

Hitwise Data Half the company have gone next door for the “Semantic Web and web 3.0″ We’re staying in the main room for something a bit more practical with Hitwise. We’re great advocates of organic search having spieled on about organic search vs PPC at length previously.

Apparently 82% of traffic to Amazon is organically generated as opposed to 18% for paid referrals.

Key sectors for 2007:

Net Communities and chat have seen 44% growth, entertainment, 21% growth, news and media 12% growth. Unexpectedly, adult has fallen by 2%. What is the world coming to???

I’m re-assured. 11.28% of site visits are adult related in the uk

It seems that there is growing trend for use of navigational terms, ie people finding particular brands by using search. It’s quicker to type Bebo into a search bar than to type out he full URL.

Google now has 82% of UK originated search. That’s huge

Yahoo 4%

Microsoft 4%

Ask 3%

Though in balance, Microsoft has a huge dominance in tools like online email and Yahoo is good for financials.

Cheapflights gets a special mention for their organic strategy. I believe the wise head that is Craig McGinty has something to do with that.

Do a search for “RAC Route Planner” for some cunning PPC brand pickup work by Expedia. Note how R A C is used instead of RAC. Hmm, doesn’t seem to work any more. Anyway, it was clever. Take my word for it.

Written By Simon Wharton

Simon Wharton

Simon is passionate about everything digital and regularly shares his findings via Twitter – priding himself on being the 19th (Now 6th!!!) most influential tweeter in Manchester! Having sat for many years on the Manchester Digital board he has positioned himself as one of the leading authorities for Online Marketing in the North West.

  • http://www.craigmcginty.com/ Craig McGinty

    Wow, always good to see your work recognised by a third party.

    Although it is quite a team working at Cheapflights, and the whole site is a stunning example of natural SEO.

    All the best,
    Craig

    PS – must agree that Google’s share of search in the UK is eye opening!

  • http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/ Robin Goad

    Hi Simon – it was good to meet you lsst week, and thanks for write up. I was inspired by our conversation to write short piece on Factory records and Manchester here: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2007/10/control_manchester_and_factory.html

    Thanks, Robin

  • http://www.creativesuit.co.uk/blog/2007/10/09/manchester-digital-conference/ Creativesuit blog » Blog Archive » Manchester Digital Conference

    [...] Last week I was in Manchester to for the excellent Manchester Digital conference. As a music fan, the city is forever linked in my mind with the Factory Records and the late Anthony H. Wilson. There have been a number of films telling the Factory story recently: first there was 24 Hour Party People staring Steve Coogan, then a documentary on BBC4 last month, and now the Ian Curtis biopic Control, directed by Anton Corbijn. As the graph below illustrates, the publicity has helped drive interest in Factory, Curtis and his band, Joy Division. A quarter of people searching for ‘ian curtis or ‘joy division’ went to Wikipedia. [...]

  • Danielle West

    Hello
    Great piece. Where did you get the info on amazon’s seo/ppc split?
    Cheers
    D

  • http://www.virtuaffinity.com Simon Wharton

    danielle
    It’s all data from Hitwise. They have access to stuff that we mere mortals can’t get at unless you have something like 12k to 15k (or something like that) spare per seat.

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