Subtle Changes in the Established Order

Ask Jeeves & Altavista on the up

[IanTurner]

I'm seeing some changes in the overall SE referal demographics for my sites just lately.

It seems that Ask Jeeves and Altavista are both seeing a good improvement in position, whereas Lycos is taking a big hit.

Current Top 5

Google 58%
MSN 18%
Yahoo 12%
Ask Jeeves 5%
Altavista 3%
Others 4%

[4eyes]

Quick stats check on one of my 'well distributed' clients:

5910 Google
2931 MSN
2586 Yahoo
819 AskJeeves
629 Freeserve
556 Altavista
...
...
124 Lycos

Ask is improving, Altavista staying about the same, Lycos is dead.

I am also seeing a lot of traffic from smaller directories - none of them big in their own right, but if I add the best 4 or 5 together, they would be close behind Altavista.

And I thought I was only submitting to them for the link:)

[added]
Lycos stats included

[Legin]

Which directories would they be?

[4eyes]

The best are industry specific directories for this specific client.

The rest are a mixed bag from the list here: [webmasterworld.com...]

There is some good mileage to made by finding any competing sites that have left their stats wide open.

With this client, one of his competitors was using webalizer and did not password protect their stats, (www.domain_name.co.uk/webstat).

I got a very nice list of which directories were providing traffic :)

[ish]

For simplicity I have ignored referrals from all sources other than those listed below:

Nov 2002
Google 64.9%
Yahoo 18.5%
MSN 5.6%
AOL 5.2%
Ask 1.9%
Freeserve 2.7%
Lycos 0.3%
Alta Vista 0.5%
BBC 0.4%

Jan 2003
Google 61.5%
Yahoo 20.6%
MSN 5.7%
AOL 5.0%
Ask 2.8%
Freeserve 2.4%
Lycos 0.8%
Alta Vista 0.6%
BBC 0.6%

Summary
Google -3.4%
Yahoo +2.1%
MSN +0.1%
AOL -0.2%
Ask +0.9%
Freeserve -0.3%
Lycos +0.5%
Alta Vista +0.1%
BBC +0.2%

Ps. anyone know how to do tables on WebmasterWorld please?

[Smiley]

I see more referrals from Ask and Altavista but the one that is growing fastest for me after google is Alltheweb.com. Also small directories and sites are refering more (perhaps they are getting more traffic from G?)

[Terrier]

Ask is very much on the up in my targeted industry, good traffic that are buyers. The answer links work well and ppc price OK.

[tigger]

It looks like Ask is improving for all of us, I've noticed quite a jump in traffic over the last few months

[George]

Mm,
Ask has been good for me for a while, (steady) as you say Terrier, good buyers.

AV however is not, and I have noticed that several sites are being "dropped" from the serps. Maybe they are reducing the database, and so those left do better?

I have not seen them advertising, so if there are more people searching, where do you think they are from?

George

[Terrier]

George
I think that with the few clicks I get from AV it must be the competition sniffing around, I know I do it. I don't think the clicks are buyer's which is a shame AV has certainly improved, still full of spam tho. It would be good to see it get the traffic again.

[George]

It Would! Oh the good ol' days! :)
Still the world might turn upside down. I am getting few pages listed in AV now however, which is a shame, and I am not sure why. I do not have the time to chase it at present either.
As for the competition, could well be!

George

[running scared]

Although conversion tracking is a relatively new game to me, I am seeing Ask Jeeves account for a large number of conversions. Google very definitely number 1, AJ second, everybody else just the odd one here and there. This dispite good MSN traffic.