Google, the San Francisco-based Internet search giant, dominates the search engine market in the U.K., referring nearly three out of every four search engine visitors, according to new, independent data from WebSideStory, Inc., a leading provider of on-demand digital marketing and customer analysis applications.
For the month of Feb. 2006, Google referred an average of 74.67 percent of all U.K. visitors to other sites on the web, compared to just 9.3 percent for its nearest competitor, according to the WebSideStory Index, a new statistical barometer that features techno-graphic trends culled from the millions of users that visit web sites using the company’s award-winning web analytics solution, HBX Analytics. Google’s search referral percentage in the U.K. exceeds both the U.S. average for the month (55.39 percent), as well as the global average (62.4 percent).
“Even more so in the U.K. than in the U.S., when people think of search, they think of Google,” said Rand Schulman, Chief Marketing Officer for WebSideStory, which will be exhibiting at the Search Engine Strategies 2006 Conference & Expo, May 31-June 2, at the Business Design Centre. “This has large implications for U.K. marketers, whose search engine marketing and optimization strategies should be Google-centric.”
Rounding out the Top 5 in terms of search referrals were Yahoo (9.30 percent), MSN (5.46 percent), AOL (4.21 percent) and Ask Jeeves (2.28 percent).
WebSideStory’s HBX Analytics is a completely hosted analysis solution that provides real-time information about online visitor and customer behavior, including the response to online marketing campaigns. HBX is part of the WebSideStory Active Marketing Suite, the industry’s first suite of integrated, on-demand digital marketing applications including web analytics, site search, web content management, call center analytics, messaging analytics, and, later this year, keyword bid management. For more information about WebSideStory, please visit www.websidestory.com.
