Secret Search Engine Insider Statistics...

Which Search engines provide the most relevancy for website ad producers & SEO specialists? I believe the answer is in letting the market (the end user) decide which search engine brings the most meat to the table. This can easily be determined by viewing the little known unique visitor statistics of the top search engines. Could knowing which search engines are receiving the most traffic aid you in SEO, and thus increase traffic to your own website? The very thought is extremely tantalizing.

A recently released, September 24, 2004, study has come to light which monitored and estimated the usage patterns of Web users at home, at work and at college. The Atlanta-based, RelevantKnowledge claims this search engine insider study is far more accurate than previous studies. Why? Because it has taken pains to monitor search engine usage in the above three distinct demographic areas.

The 20 most accessed sites in order are: ( Ranking By Site Unique Visitors Accessing Data Bases )
1. Yahoo! 14,822,302**
2. Microsoft 12,012,202
3. Netscape 10,824,802
4. America Online 8,251,103 Excite
5. Infoseek 7,946,467**
6. Excite 7,597,988**
7. Geocities 7,127,869 Lycos (web only)
8. MSN 6,170,267
9. Lycos 4,883,459**
10. AltaVista 4,657,826**
11. CNET 3,976,232
12. ZDNet 3,521,996
13. Webcrawler 3,233,339**
14. RealAudio 2,260,248
15. Four11 2,202,307
16. Pathfinder 2,129,904
17. Hotmail 1,936,296
18. ESPN 1,931,467
19. Tripod 1,754,563
20. Compuserve 1,720,862
** The double asterisks were used to identify the search engines in the top 20 list.

What do all of these unique visit numbers mean to those of you seeking search engine insider information? It means that some of the seemingly popular search engines rank much differently when you view them under the microscope of unique visits from the top 3 demographic searching groups. The reason search engines do not prefer the public to know the exact number of eyes viewing them is simple - the possible fluctuation in ad revenue due to advertisers seeking maximum exposure elsewhere.

Now aware of this new SE insider information, will you alter your SEO or ad marketing efforts or will you stick with your current optimization campaign? Your thoughts and opinions are truly welcome.

Footnote: I do not know why Google.com is clearly absent from this report - I will research this with RelevantKnowledge and post their response, if any, within this thread.

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Maximilian
Maximum Beauty Products Supply Stores

I don't know how much I trust a report that puts Netscape at #3. Netscape sunshine days are over.

Google is a very big dominating site on the internet. You can't deny that.

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Visit my site http://www.cricketsoda.com

Google just lost approximately 1/3 of its Internet search market share, when Yahoo dropped them in favor of their own "slurp" spider technology. This week respected Wall Street insiders just placed Google.com from a "buy" to a "sell" for the first time in years.

As for not trusting the report because Netscape shows high traffic actually makes its intended point in that the end user, by their unique visits, determine market share, not what the "experts" say about a search engine's prospects.

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Maximilian
Maximum Beauty Products Supply Stores

cricketsodafloat wrote:
"I don't know how much I trust a report that puts Netscape at #3. Netscape sunshine days are over."
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Believe it or not... My stats are showing Netscape making a resurgence too!

Ken

What I find interesting is Yahoo's 2 million unique daily visitor lead over Microsoft. With Microsoft's huge ISP market, are folks logging on using Microsoft & then going out of their way to use Yahoo for their preferred search engine? So much for their "Walled Garden" of "get 'em & keep 'em in the same venue" philosophy.

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Maximilian
Maximum Beauty Products Supply Stores

Most of the apparent discrepancies can be visualized if one goes to Bruce Clay's website and views his Search Engine Relationship Chart.

For example, I use Vivisimo for 90% or more of my websearching, which receives its feeds from Yahoo (and directly from Overture, which feeds into Yahoo), etc. If I'm seeking very hard to find data, I'll also use Google; however, I tend to keep Google for its newsfeeds if I'm not in the mood for my RSS Reader.

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LdyGuique

That site is so awesome - thank you! I like the way you can hover & see the inter-relationships between the different search engines & indices.

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Maximilian
Maximum Beauty Products Supply Stores

I've seen other unrelated reports (that list SE's)that didn't mention Google. I think it's intentionally. More than likely the originator of the report has some type of affiliation or connection in that mentioning Google would be a conflict of interest.

I'm curious if RelevantKnowledge explains their reason.

Personally, I'm not fond of Yahoo's way of doing business with people, so they're out. The AOL community looks appealing, depending on rates. Their willingness to spend on AOL might be interpreted as a willingness to spend online.

Don't know how much I can trust a report that says this about a company that has been publicly traded for only a couple of months.

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Mel Nelson
Expert SEO