A study conducted by Hitwise revealed that search engines have overtaken adult sites in share among U.K. Internet users. In January, search engines accounted for 13.3 percent of all U.K. Internet visits, compared with 11.5 percent for adult websites. While there is only a slim margin between the two, adult sites seemed to have lost their momentum in July of 2006, while search engine use has continued to rise. The market share of U.K. Internet visits to search engines grew 21 percent year-upon-year in January, while adult-oriented website visits declined 14 percent.
Hitwise analysis reveals that the search terms consumers enter into the leading search engines varies. In particular, Google.co.uk searchers are more likely to be looking for Web 2.0 properties, and UK.ask.com searchers are more likely to search for generic products.
For example, searches for "Wikipedia" ranked No. 13 on Google.co.uk based on volume of U.K. searches; the term ranked No, 40 on uk.search.yahoo.com; No. 89 on uk.ask.com; and No. 77 on http://www.search.msn.co.uk. The term "Flickr" ranked No. 576 on Google.co.uk; No. 1007 on uk.search.yahoo.com; No. 2259 on uk.ask.com; and No. 1759 on search.msn.co.uk. Hitwise analysis revealed similar patterns for "MySpace," "Bebo" and other Web 2.0 properties.
Ask.com users are more likely to search for generic products, such as "share prices," "car insurance," and "weather," than users of the other search engines. In particular, the term "famous people" ranked at No. 18 on uk.ask.com but fell below the top 5,000 terms on other major search engines.
"Varying demographics and the short cuts on Ask.com account for the differences," said Heather Hopkins, vice president of research for Hitwise UK. "Ask.com prompts users with shortcuts to help guide queries, and use of these shortcuts has changed the queries performed on Ask.com. Also, [should] the audience of the leading search engines overlap to some extent, each also has a slightly unique [user] profile. For example, Ask.com tends to attract a larger share of younger families than average. [Whereas] Yahoo! Search attracts a larger share of visits from Northern Ireland and Scotland. Understanding demographic and behavioral differences can help marketers improve search marketing campaigns across the various search engines."
