Search Engine News Blog Headline

14 March 2003

By Kalena Jordan

Referrals From Search Engines on the Increase

According to research gathered by WebSideStory's StatMarket, search engines and direct navigation now make up the large majority of referrals to Web sites.

The StatMarket statistics were collected from over 125,000 sites using WebSideStory's HitBox analytics platform, representing the surfing habits of approximately 12 million Internet users. Data was collected on March 6, 2003 and compared to statistics from a year earlier. The data revealed that search engines generated 13.4 percent of site referrals on that day, up from 7.1 percent measured a year prior.

>> Direct navigation also rose in the sample, growing from 50.1 percent to 65.5 percent. Web links fell from 42.6 percent to 21 percent.

The breakdown of data per country was even more interesting. A year ago, search engines accounted for 8 percent of all referrals in the U.S., while this year they accounted for 15 percent. In Australia, search engine referrals increased from 10.9 percent to 17 percent. Spain had the most striking increase in search engine referrals, from 10.8 percent to 21.5 in 12 months.

"People are more efficient in their Web use," said Geoff Johnston, Vice President of Product Marketing for StatMarket. "The trend is that they either navigate directly to a Web site they already know, or use a search engine to find a new one."

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