UK Search engine reach/who powers who

Anyone have any fresh stats.

[Screamer]

Trying to get data on who provides which search engines with results, and how the search engines rank in terms of reach in the UK. Only info I can find seems to be 1 year old.

Any ideas?

Cheers

[heini]

Hi screamer, welcome to the board.

We have in this forum, dedicated to the UK search engine scene, lots of fresh info, I'm sure our strong memberbase from the UK will gladly fill you in.

[TallTroll]

Try a search for "who powers <your target engine>" on the site search here, or your favourite external SE, too. Brett put up a nice SE relationship chart recently, but I can't find it at the moment. Reach data is a bit more tricky. I don't really believe any of it, but would rather trust to MY logs to tell me which SE's are important to MY site, and which ones I should pay more attention to

Keeping an eye out here will keep you informed of future changes and alliances, too

[louponne]

but would rather trust to MY logs to tell me which SE's are important to MY site

This is entirely off-subject, but I've always wondered about that practice - aren't logs both informative and mis-informative? I mean they tell you what's working, but they don't tell you what's not working!

[TallTroll]

>> I mean they tell you what's working, but they don't tell you what's not working!

Yes they do. If you see 90+% Google traffic, maybe you should consider looking into learning about optimising for other engines too, and say, creating some Ink-specific content, or having a go at cracking the alltheweb algo.

If you see 10 uniques a day on a search string where you only appear on page 5, thats a good indication that you should be hammering that word/phrase harder

If there is a word/phrase that you know your direct competitors (you DO know who your competitors are, right?) ranks well for, but you don't, and you don't see any traffic for, maybe you should target that too. Thus lack of information can ALSO be postive information

Bear in mind that regardless of the "reach" of a search engine, it may be utterly useless to you if the user demographic doesn't match your target demographic. How many AOL users do you think do searches for *nix related terms? How many Google users?

As both are searching the same database, the results are going to be near identical (barring some AOL branding clutter etc) in each case, but I bet the differences in %age of userbase doing those searches is enormous

[louponne]

Yes, of course I see your points, but there's no real way, it seems to me, of know whether you're doing the best possible for the best possible search words. I mean what if your're missing some obvious search phrases?
Or maybe the process should be :
1. Sign up for a Goog AdWords campaign with dozens of search words/phrases and a minimal bid
2. After a week or two, garner the information in terms of numbers of times searched
3. Study your logs in relation to that, assuming that Goog is a good basis of info for all general-purpose SE.
Does that all make sense?
(of course if there are some search phrases that don't even occur to you, you're going to leave them out of your Goog "study" and miss them entirely forever, right?)
Hey, I'm still learning!

[webdiversity]

Some interesting thoughts there louponnne.

I've seen a lot of people try to Google Adwords thing, indeed we pioneered this technique as a testing ground for keyword research not long after Adwords Select started, as Tall Troll can testify to!

I think there will always be things that will jump up and bite you as being so fundamentally obvious that you wonder how you ever make it through the day without getting run over you seem so dumb, but then you'll unlock something later in the same day which will deliver riches beyond your wildest dream, it's what the whole gold panning industry was built on.

[Screamer]

Many thanks for that Webdiversity. Just what was needed!
Cheers
Screamer

[webdiversity]

Screamer, don't thank me, thank the guys that put the chart together and made it available for guys like me to tell guys like you about it!

[4eyes]

Here is a quick summary of the highest traffic providers.

Please feel free to correct me on any of these.

Google
Own Database
DMOZ

MSN UK
Overture UK (top3)
Looksmart UK
Looksmart.com
Inktomi

AOL
Overture UK (top3)
Google
DMOZ

Freeserve
Overture UK (all)
Google

Yahoo UK
Own Directory
Espotting
Google

Yahoo.com
Own Directory
Overture US
Google
(it used to have some Overture UK 'geo-targeted' for UK searches - but I can't find any now - feedback anyone?)

Lycos UK
Overture UK (2 at top, 3 at bottom)
Fast
Own Directory

Lycos.com
Overture US (top 3)
Fast
DMOZ

Altavista
Own Database
Looksmart
Overture

Altavista UK
Own Database
Overture
Looksmart UK

ASK Jeeves
Own Database/Teoma
Espotting
Mirago (pull down box)
Overture UK (pull down box)

[edited by: 4eyes at 11:49 am (utc) on Feb. 14, 2003]

[Legin]

Altavista UK
Own Database
Overture
Directory - Looksmart UK

[4eyes]

Thanks Legin - I'v fixed the post to reflect that.

I checked Looksmart UK when compiling the list and the results looked very different

Seem correct today.

Pah - I don't need Looksmart's help to look foolish - I can manage that by myself:)

thanks again

4Eyes

[redlion]

The sponsored links on Lycos UK channels and the forlorn directory are from Epsotting though.

Useful diagram at the end of this PDF report shows who powers who in PPC/PFI in the UK - One to print for the wall!

[makemetop]

Lycos UK switched to Overture some months ago.

The link will/should be removed as the last one was.

[redlion]

makemetop

Lycos channels/directory PPC adverts are Espotting - they did a deal after the search PPC results went to Overture, thread here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

If anyone wants the link that was removed from above (sorry about that) sticky mail me.

[makemetop]

Not much of a prize for espotting having listings in the Lycos directory - I've never ever had a referral from it - and not many from the main listings either!

[arc_light]

AskJeeves' own results include both Teoma and DirectHit, correct? They're also running some Google ads in the US but I don't think they are in the UK (yet).

And for MSN & Looksmart, remember Zeal UK can get you in for free (for the right type of site).