Searcher Behavior and Search Marketplace Mature by Virginia Nussey, Bruce Clay (Oct 14)
Two points:
+ Search statements are getting longer. In September, Hitwise data for the US showed that 52% of queries had more than 2 words.
Virginia Bussey speculates that this may be because web searchers are more experienced or, with the huge increase in content, it's the only way. Better use of search engine optimization at sites might be a facto as well.
+ SEM industry may be in stage 3 of the maturity cycle - "During stage three, growth slows down, and from that, success is redefined from percent of growth to percent of market share. "
Noted the difference between Google and Yahoo: Google has volume (70%) of searches; and Bing has better conversion rate (for ads) in the areas it concentrates on (travel being one of them).
Posted by Gwen at October 16, 2009 12:24 PM