Last week the latest figures were released on search engine traffic in Australia. Google were used for a total of 87% of web searches in Australia,with the breakdown being 74% though google.com.au and 13% through google.com. Allan Long, the Experian Hitwise Director for Research in the Asia Pacific Region,who conduct the research, commented that he felt Google’s dominance was so strong in the search market that he felt it unlikely that their 2 main competitors, Yahoo and Bing, would challenge in the near future. He did however feel that the Social Networking genre, particularly Facebook would become responsible for more traffic than Google.
However at the Commercial end of the web he said that the figures “highlight the need for businesses to continue to develop and enhance their visibility online and maintain presence in search engines through tactics such as SEO.”
Long also referred to the greater use of Long tail searches in the traffic figures, with searches of a minimum of five words increasing their share by 2%. This is an interesting development as it shows web browsers are gaining more knowledge of maximising their search capability to refine their results towards increased relevancy. Best practice in SEO circles for a while has been to optimise for the long tail as well as the short tail.
To read more about this report CLICK HERE
