What are the 5 most important UK Engines?

[Brett_Tabke]

What are the 5 most important UK engines to be in?

[NFFC]

As always depends on the type of site, this is my list for B2C ecommerce sites:

lycos.co.uk
altavista.co.uk
ask.co.uk
msn.co.uk
Inktomi

[tigger]

no sign of yahoo !!

has to be

yahoo.
msn
goto (for ask & freeserve)
lycos (due to public awareness)
excite (a/a)

[makemetop]

If you are looking at SE databases, I would say:

Inktomi - for MSN UK, AOL UK, LineOne, Compuserve, BTInternet, NTL, HotBot, UKMax and most ISPs in UK plus backup results on Freeserve, Looksmart etc. (My traffic from NTL and LineOne together almost equals MSN UK).

Google - for Yahoo UK web pages, Virgin B2B and B2C portals.

Yahoo - web sites.

GoTo UK - Freeserve and Ask

AV UK - Ask

Close behind run Lycos and Excite - but if I could have one additional choice it would be Looksmart UK. A listing in that can (if you are lucky) push a site to the very top of MSN UK and Excite UK above all International sites on highly competitive terms, plus you get in to the AV UK directory and become one of the search options on BTInternet and LineOne.

[engine]

I just ran a quick survey to put some facts to this.

As NFFC said, it depends on the site type, so here is a cross section taken from ten sites. Some B2C, some B2B.

So, here's the positioning.
1. MSN UK 43%
2. Yahoo UK 26%
3. AV UK 21%
4. Ask.co.UK 6%
5. Yahoogle UK 4%

By Far, the biggest volume comes from MSN UK, although, one of the consumer sites is not in Yahoo, and this might make a difference to those figures, pushing Yahoo down a little.

My views are that Yahoo's directory is the best traffic generator with a listing in MSN also being very valuable. Without doubt, one cannot ignore AV UK.
I was also surprised that Ask was doing so well. Last time I ran this kind of survey, Ask was nowhere.
Additionally, out of the top five, but a new entry, was google uk. Give it time and I think it will climb the listings.
Other sources bubbling under include some specialist directories. I believe that these are likely to send better qualified traffic, even if they are not sending the sheer volumes.
If these specialist directories continue their good work, they will become better known and better frequented, driving better quality and improved volumes of traffic.

I hope this helps.

[King_Arthur]

Nice interesting thread, doesn't google.co.uk make an appearance in the top 5?

I would appreciate feedback,

Many thanks

KA

[engine]

Hi King_Arthur, welcome to WmW. Glad to have you posting.

Google uk is only recently on the scene and it's yet to make a long term showing in the top five.
I wonder how may surfers know of it's existence? Not as many as we might think.
For sure, it'll make inroads, but, based upon current facts, it's yet to build up steam.

If you are in google.com, you should find you'll be in google.co.uk

I'm not quite sure where the .co.uk will be heading and what services it'll be powering. Time will tell.

[NFFC]

>no sign of yahoo !!

Ah, directories as well ;)

OK, if it's a matter of life and death and I could only pick 5:

Yahoo
Looksmart.co.uk
lycos.co.uk [this may change, they used to be the way into ask.co.uk]
altavista.co.uk
Inktomi [non-paid]

[engine]

Again, it's important to remember, a listing in Yahoo can often help boost other listings. It is such a BIG figure, it cannot be ignored. If you take Yahoo out of the equation, it doesn't leave very many referals from the other search engines.
If I were to take it out, then i'd put lycos into the equation. However, this is somewhat frgamented in it's own right by uk.lycos.de lycos.co.uk and hotbot.lycos.co.uk

If you take directories, without calculating, they are:
1. Yahoo.co.uk
2. UK Plus
3. Looksmart
4. Lifestyle.co.uk
5. Applegate

Notice ODP is not there. That is only because I didn't count it, with it being a single directory. ODP referals are coming from so many other sources - all are welcome, but none stand out.

[lloyd]

It depends what you mean by the most important and what market you are aiming at.

If it is just volume then this is the official top 10 (as per MMXI)in reverse order.

AskJeeves.com
Google.com
AskJeeves.co.uk
Aol Proprietary
Lycos.com
Yahoo.co.uk
Msn.co.uk
Freeserve.com
Yahoo.com
Msn.com

Note: Inktomi is no where because Inktomi is a database. So if you want to get on MSN get onto Inktomi's database.
ALSO - isn't strange that the .com versions are still getting more traffic than the .co.uk. MSN do t.v ads work?

[oLeon]

Very intresting thread!

>>lycos.co.uk [this may change, they used to be the way into ask.co.uk]
what does it mean? I thought lycos.co.uk uses FAST- results and not ask.

>>Inktomi - BTInternet
I canīt see that, just the possibilty to choose between Looksmart or Excite - did I anything wrong?

[Rumbas]

*bump* It's been a while since this one has been discussed.

Top 5 UK SE's to die for:

1. MSN UK
2. Yahoo UK
3. AV UK
4. Ask.co.UK
5. Yahoo Google

Inktomi, Goto, Freeserve, Lycos?

Nielsen Netratings, Top PROPERTIES July 2001:

1. MSN
2. Yahoo!
3. AOL Time Warner
4. Wanadoo
5. Microsoft
6. British Telecom
7. Lycos Network
8. Google
9. Ask Jeeves
10. BBC

What do you tell potentiel B2C clients when they want you to target the top SE's in UK as of today?
Sure would love to get a fix on it :)

[Videoman]

Oleon
BTinternet used Ink for their own search option. For the past few months this was a rotating Icon - rotating as in alternate Home Page loads - now you see it now you dont. The Ink contract ran out at the end of July and that is why, "now you dont" at all. It is not on the new Home page.

[carlwright]

OK - what would you say is the most useful (as far as traffic) of the UK only search engines? Preferably a freebie?

[IanTurner]

Google
Yahoo
MSN
Lycos
Altavista

Are my top 5 for referrals :)

[welshwayne]

Very interesting stuff here!

however, has anyone thought about the following, if you use the results from neilsen, mmxi et al.

1. yahoo groups, yahoo news and yahoo email make the majority of traffic to yahoo reported to mmxi, nielsen etc.

2. comunities and features also adds very highly to traffic of lycos, aol and msn.

[engine]

Welshwayne, hi.
That's an interesting angle. Under those circumstances, it makes quite a difference to traffic.

[caine]

If i was :

these would be my order.

MSN
Yahoogle
AV
Lycos
Fast

[Sladian]

If important means the most useful I think Wisenut.com must be worth a mention or even 'Sneak a Peek'!

[uk_dokey]

Hi gang lets post up more like this for the UK....

From my experience Yahoo.com primarily and .co.uk secondary give me just over half my traffic. Then it has to be UK Plus followed by lycos. Google.co.uk totally useless really despite being on their first page for one of the most searched keywords.
I had a stage when well over 50% of my hits came from Netscape.com which is fed by the ODP well over 200 hits per day but I think most of it was from the USA. I would love to know, as I have just signed up for Looksmart, what a first page listing with MSN.co.uk is like how many hits do you guys get in percentage to other traffic and what quality is it like in terms of sales??

[engine]

uk_dokey, hi there.

MSN drives good quality traffic and I value it greatly. It's not all about volume of hits. If it's well targeted, then the qualified traffic is better than quantity.

[kapow]

This is a great thread!

1. Yahoo.com
2. Google.com
3. MSN

A lot of uk people use the .com SEs with a query like 'Blah blah in Hampshire'.

[kapow]

There seems to be a trend lately of country specific and smaller SEs running into financial difficulty.

Does anyone have an estimation of who will be the big players 1 year from now? e.g. Will Google only list its uk data in Google.com for queries like 'blah blah in London' etc.

[caine]

Kapow,

Interesting question - THE BIG PLAYERS IN ONE YEARS TIME ? Start a new thread - it'll get a great response.

For me, I can't see Google going anywhere, though will be fought by wisenut and possibly AV if they continue the comeback they've made over the last couple of months, Lycos and Subsiduarys around the world are coming up and slowly becoming serious comp to Yahoo's dominance, Not sure where Fast will be though, could quite easily challenge google for the Crown if they are consistent, always improving their algo's, picking up some more partners (more money to re-invest) and can ride the forthcoming economic difficulties ahead.

[kapow]

THE BIG PLAYERS IN ONE YEARS TIME ? - new thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[subway]

OK - 1 year later but here goes (I don't think this is worthy of a new thread) - but why doesn't Yahoo UK let you pay to have your site listed in the UK directory if it already appears in the .com? Even though the results of the 2 directories differ considerably?

[Shakil]

current state of play IMHO with reference to our sites:

Google.co.uk
MSN.co.uk
Yahoo.co.uk (search engine / directory)
Aol.co.uk
Lycos.co.uk

hope that helps

shak

[Receptional]

Two site - two very different findings:
A .co.uk site with five figure search engine referrals in September on one UK site, our break down is as follows:

MSN 19.4%
Yahoo website UK 15.1%
MSN UK 8.8%
Looksmart UK 8.1%
Google 8%
Yahoo Websites 7.9%
Google UK 7.4%
AOL UK 5.9%
AskJeeves UK 5.8%
Other 14.1%

However - the stats are variable site to site. Another .co.UK site with 5 figure SE referrals in September reads like this:

Yahoo websites 27.4 %
Google 21.7%
MSN 12.3%
Google UK 6.2%
AOL 4.4%
28.2% other.

The latter is much older, with content more relevent for a non-UK audience. But goes to show how distortion can set in.

Dixon.

[4eyes]

Recent analysis based on a few of our larger traffic sites:

Google 39.88%
Microsoft Internet Search 22.67%
Yahoo! 15.66%
AltaVista 6.20%
AOL Search 3.14%
Ask Jeeves 2.80%
Freeserve 1.30%
LookSmart 1.27%
Lycos 1.12%

others all under 1% each

[added]
Receptional is right - it varies wildly from site to site - customer profiles, site size and different rankings will affect this.

However the above is broadly indicative of our average across a couple of hundred sites.

Nice to see Altavista moving up some:)

[subway]

4eyes are the above UK engines only?