Yahoo, Google, Inktomi, MSN, AOL Traffic

[Biff Joe]

1. What is the % of all searches done directly on Yahoo, Google, MSN, and AOL?

2. What is the % of all searches done that come from Yahoo, Google, and Inktomi?

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums Biff Joe! :hi:

Your question cannot be answered accurately as the engines do not say how many searches are done.

Media Matrix has some figures for you.

[Biff Joe]

thanks that's what i guessed, but thought there might be somebody who knew more than i do

[manwah]

Also, if you use Wordtracker (highly recommended by most members and industry types) one of the headers when you are doing search comparisons gives you the figures that they estimate done directly at the engines:

e.g.

Google gets 23.4800% of all search engine traffic (approx. 75 million a day).

Yahoo gets 37.7600% of all search engine traffic (approx. 121 million a day).

You will have to check for the others (as it only lets you do a comparison of two engines at a time). And as always caveat emptor. Do not rely on these figures, as with all sources you would be wisest to cross-reference them with other places such as media metrix.

%age of searches that come to your website from various engines will vary depending on your optimisation, target audience and relative success/failure.

Hope that helps.

M

[Biff Joe]

thanks that did help, i will check both sources.

[PrimeVisibility]

Welcome to the forums . . .

As Doug said, it is tough to say as certain info is not released by the engines themselves. However, I would also argue that depending on what your targeted market it, one particular engine (popular or not) may be a better source for you to deliver pre-qualified traffic!

[Mel]

I tend to rely on the information given by Wordtracker as being just about as good as you can get, as they get this information from Statmarket.com which is a well recognized Web statistics agency, but unfortunately in order to access their very imprsssive list of Web Statistics you have to subscribe to thier service. which starts out at $1800 annually and increases quickly if you desire really detailed stats.

[Kal]

Don't forget Danny's List of Stats (http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/index.html) which are updated regularly :thumb:

[Mel]

While it is important to know which search engines searchers are using, it should not be at the expense of the marketing side of the site,

I believe that it is still more important to structure your site so that:
1. Your listings in the SERPs are structured to make people want to click through to your site.

2. Your site is well written and presents a good case for using/buying your product, service or whatever.

3. You still have to have a good business proposition if you want to make sales.

[Biff Joe]

thanks, i asked danny he pointed me to his stats page too, i've seen the wordtracker numbers too. i think i have a decent idea.

[ihelpyou]

Hey Biff, I am extremely curious. :)

Why do you wish to know the numbers of searches performed? Why not just know that if you get good ranks on those searches, your referrals will be good?

I guess I just don't see the need to even think about the numbers like that. Besides, it truly makes no difference if you get x amount of searches and you are ranked good so you get lots of visitors, BUT your site does not sell those visitors when they get there. For this reason, it's hard to see why you wish to know the numbers like this?

I would think a better number would be to find out what who your target market is and what particular search engine the majority of your market is using?

I'm just very curious about this. :)

<added>Of course, I have always never seen the need to know the mathematics of this industry anyway. To me, it's a big waste of time unless you get very specific in what you are looking for. If the site is well represented in the major search engines and the site is of good quality and content so your visitors do what you want them to do when they get there, the need to know numbers I cannot comprehend.</added>

[Biff Joe]

the need to know is a time allocation issue, if engine x is getting 40% of traffic, engine y is getting 30% and engine z is getting 5%, I'm going to take time to learn engine x and y first, achieve good results then do engine z when I get around to it. If I had more time I would take a more subjective approach, but would prefer to initially allocate my time based on where the majority of people are.

:cheers:

[ihelpyou]

Oh. I don't find that necessary at all. Your pages can rank across the board easily without targeting any particular engine.