Following from yesterday’s post ‘Searches getting longer” today we look at the impact of branded search (aka navigational search) and the trends in the success rates of searches on the major Search Engines used by Australian Internet users.

The following chart analyses the Top 500 search terms used by Australian Internet users in the week ending 14 November 2009 and the corresponding weeks in 2008, 2007 and 2006 to identify the trends.

The search terms are categorised as either generic, non brand specific requests e.g. ‘cheap flights’, and search terms that do contain a brand reference, e.g. ‘village cinemas’.

Over the past three years the number of branded search terms has increased from 409 terms to 451 of the top 500 search terms.

Not only are the number of branded search terms becoming more concentrated within the Top 500 search terms, so is the volume (% of clicks) that the top 500 represent of the top 50,000 search terms. The volume of clicks derived from these branded search terms within the top 500 has increased 62.6% in the past three years, with the largest movement in the past 12 months (29.3%) off a 10.3% increase in terms.

This concentration highlights the increased navigational nature of search, and that users use the search query box as a default url locator, a reason why one of the key features of Google Chrome is the integrated search functionality.

The increase in branded search at the top of the search term rankings, plus the lengthening of search terms seen in my previous post (url for searches getting longer) indicates the increasing specificity of a search and this is reflected in an increase in the search success rates – a successful search is regarded as one that is followed by a click from the results.

In a comparison between week ending 14 November 2009 and the corresponding week in 2008, the leading four search engines have experienced substantial lifts in their successful delivery of search results that generate a click, after a dip in 2008.

The continued innovation and refinement of Search Engines along with more specific search requests now provide users with a positive outcome over 75% of the time.

For marketers you can identify search terms that receive high and low success rates and ensure your site is optimised and paid creative is relevant to maximise outcomes for specific search terms.

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