Hitwise: Multi-Word Queries Growing in Popularity
| Manoj Jasra - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 1 Comments |
According to Hitwise: The length of search queries has increased over the past year. Longer search queries, averaging searches of 5+ words in length, have increased 10 percent comparing January 2009 to January 2008. The same time period showed that shorter search queries, averaging those 1 to 4 words in length, have decreased 2 percent.
Percentage of U.S. clicks by number of keywords | ||||
Subject | Jan-08 | Dec-08 | Jan-09 | Year-over-year percent change |
1 word | 20.96% | 20.70% | 20.29% | -3% |
2 words | 24.91% | 24.13% | 23.65% | -5% |
3 words | 22.03% | 21.94% | 21.92% | 0% |
4 words | 14.54% | 14.67% | 14.89% | 2% |
5 words | 8.20% | 8.37% | 8.68% | 6% |
6 words | 4.32% | 4.47% | 4.65% | 8% |
7 words | 2.23% | 2.40% | 2.49% | 12% |
8+ words | 2.81% | 3.31% | 3.43% | 22% |
Note: Data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending Jan. 31, 2009; Dec. 27, 2008; and Jan. 26, 2008) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. | ||||
Source: Hitwise, an Experian company | ||||
Labels: HitWise
Hi,
Long Tail queries is for you linked to the number of keywords.
But I think it's more the amount of traffic brought by queries than the numbers of keywords that come into play.
I mean that a query with 3 or 4 keywords may be one of the most popular query for a website.
Am I wrong?
Benoit