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Getting your site ranked at the top of a search engine listing can
be daunting, but that is only part of the equation. To maximize your reach, you
need to know which search engines are the most popular, and which search engines
best reach your target audiences.
Webmasters know that major search engines are the most important places to
be listed because of their potential to generate tremendous amounts of traffic.
Salient Marketing takes this to the next level by ensuring your web
site is well ranked and generates targeted traffic.
Searchers generally first go to well-known, commercially-backed search engines
because they see them as guaranteeing dependable results. These search engines
tend to be backed by large organizations, capable of proper maintenance, frequent
hardware and software upgrades and continually scaled to stay just ahead of the
Web’s frantic growth pace.
Knowledge of the biggest, best and most popular search engine sites has become
a valuable commodity. Services handling traditional ratings such as Nielsen, (i.e.
television/entertainment, consumer habits) have added the Internet and the Web
to their services. Nielsen’s NetRatings service now conducts
global web site ratings in 26 countries with 250,000 users being monitored with
real-time meters as they surf the Web.
US Digital Media Universe Audience Reach
Home & Work Users, January 2003
Source: Nielsen/NetRatings |
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The popularity of search engines in general is undeniable. No other invention
has become so globally ubiquitous. Imagine – available free to anyone, in
a variety of flavors. It is the first stop for virtually everyone as the Internet’s
gateway to the world.
A recent survey of U.S. web users identified five search engine sites, each
with a market penetration of greater than 5 percent and the top three with a reach
of more than a quarter of all web users. This showed increasing migration of users
to top-tier web sites as previous surveys had shown at least 10 sites with a greater
than 5 percent penetration.
Average Minutes Spent Searching Per Visitor
Home & Work Users, January 2003
- AOL
with 38 minutes
- Google with 28.5 minutes
- InfoSpace with 11.1 minutes
- Yahoo with 11 minutes
- Ask
Jeeves with 10.2 minutes
Source: Nielsen/NetRatings |
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Then there is the quantity vs. quality argument for determining search
engine popularity. Are users who spend more time surfing a particular site doing
so because they are serious surfers looking for detailed information? Are they
simply taking longer to find something on one site that may take a fraction of
the time to find on another search site? Are they “career” surfers
who wander aimlessly for hours in cyberspace?
Whatever the reason, a survey of popularity based on time spent by individuals
searching on particular search engine sites produces a dramatically different
set of results. Now the top three based on average minutes spent searching per
visitor is AOL (38 minutes) Google (28.5 minutes) and InfoSpace (11.1 minutes).
Yahoo! (11 minutes) and AskJeeves (10.2 minutes) round out the top five.
Here’s a quick look at the top Internet search engines:
| Search Engines
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Additional Search Engine Resources
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SalientMarketing is Search Engine Marketing and Market Research Firm.
Our staff of marketing and technology professionals deliver services that maximize
the return on investment (ROI) for online and offline marketing
initiatives. Our process of implementation is rooted in upfront research followed
by a measurement of success, ensuring that our strategies are on target and
exceed expectations. It's all about taking the guesswork of business success.
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of services or solutions that we provide
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