SES 2006 The Search Landscape

SES 2006: The Search Landscape

By: David Utter
2006-08-07

The panelists for a morning session on the search landscape brought forth some facts and figures for attendees to consider.

Staff writer Doug Caverly of WebProNews filed this exclusive look at the SES 2006 San Jose session on the search landscape.

Big search sites are growing larger, according to Michael Lanz, VP, Search Industry Solutions, NetRatings. He cited data from AdRelevance and MegaPanel stating Google, Yahoo, and Ask.com gained in share, while Google and Yahoo also increased in usage.

Vertical searches in local search and images have also taken off since last year. On the demographic side, Google's users tend to be young and single. AOL searchers tend to be older and single, interestingly enough. Lanz contrasted those two sites and their searchers during his presentation.

The majority of consumer electronics buyers are going directly to the retailer to make a purchase. For Walmart.com, the proportion of direct referrals is even higher," he noted. "Google dominates the number of consumer electronics search referrals directly before a purchase. But AOL is the most efficient for driving sales dollars to retailers.

Google's growth has come at the expense of other search engines, observed James Lamberti, senior VP at comScore. They have continued to move upward at a slow, steady pace.

And Bill Tancer, whose Hitwise reports we reference regularly on WebProNews, said, "The top four search engines accounted for almost 98% of all executed searches, with Google leading the way.

Tancer noted Yahoo's Search users tend to be under 35; that is likely due to the younger focus of its portal content. MSN Search were more likely to be over 35; that's a figure Microsoft could find detrimental to its quest for more search advertising dollars.

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Tag: SES 2006

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About the Author:
David Utter is a staff writer for SearchNewz and WebProNews covering technology and business.