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I employ a commercial hit counter (counting visitors, not page hits) and the results have been consistent for a long time now.
MSN sends me almost 50% of my search-based traffic. Google about 25% and Yahoo about 20%.
I had been focused totally on Google results until this week when I started testing my search terms in these other engines and found that by best search word was #9 in google, but #65 in MSN.
Why would what I am seeing be so utterly different than what is reported (ie Google getting 90%+ of SE use)?
I believe that different groups of people have different searching patterns, so what you see depends on the group of people looking for your site.
I've worked with companies that hold solid top 5 positions across every engine, yet 85% of their traffic comes from Google.
I've worked with others that also hold similar positions that get almost all of their traffic from MSN.
That is why you should never pay attention to global trends or figures when doing SEO. It's all about the unique situation of the particular project you are working on. And no two projects are the same. That's what makes it all so much fun...:)
However, I have seen traffic from MSN increase greatly over the last few months but like WebGuerrilla said that could be for any one of a hundred different reasons.
MSN searchers tend, in general, to search for fun and hobby type things where google tends to be more varied.
G.
MSN will always be there for the ordinary folk who use it as the default browser when windows is installed.
Computer savvy people will use google and the old farts have msn.
"..The top dog, Microso - uhh, I mean Google, now powers the other two top search engines, AOL and Yahoo.
I remember a time when I liked having more choices. When researching something, I often checked out other SERPs to see what else was out there. When I wanted to see different results than Micr-- uhh, I mean Google, I went to Yahoo.
But now, I have gone looking for new underdogs. Places like Ixquick. Besides variety, I like underdogs. Consider myself one. If I wanted Micr, uhh, I mean Google results, I would go to Google. Not Yahoogle or A-oogle.
Half my income comes from the internet. Like in stocks, I've learned, now, not to rely heavily on any one source too much. Diversify, is my mantra.
Every major company reaches an apex. Then, the public wants something new or the higher ups micro manage it to death. (They lose touch with what got them to top in the first place. They "improve" it to death.) Perhaps Yahoo has reached their's and they are on the downward slide (and there is lots of evidence of this). I think we are seeing GoogleSoft at their highest point.
But nothing lasts forever.
In the short history of the internet, that is the only "true fact" I have learned.
Hello Teoma, how you do'in baby?"
---end quote.
For those Googlephiles out there, you are doing fine today but don't ever think "it won't happen to me." Google can break your heart.
Still, Google shouldn't be discounted if you are not doing well there now. "Play their game" which seems to be content is king, not page rank. (good, original content. Not rehash and rewrite jobs).
But putting all your eggs in one basket is just bad business. Period.
How do you diversify when Google is today's king? You got to brainstorm and be creative. I could list half a dozen things I am doing, but this is not the forum.
Google does have a larger market share, and given all thing equal, you should get more visitors from Google. That being said, all things equal would mean Google would be a monopoly.
As for using the underdogs, I total aggree. Gigablast, Teoma and Wisenut all look promising.
However, I predict that in 2-3 years Google will not be King anymore. A new underdog or an old one, will rise to take it's place. Then, it too, will be taken down.
The internet is a fluid, ever-changing arena. Fads, and SE's for that matter, come and go. To repeat myself, nothing lasts forever.
I don't have anything against Google, but I don't see it's MicroSoft like dominance lasting more than a year or two.
Today's top dog is tomorrow's AltaVista or Excite. History repeats itself. There is nothing that can be done about it.
IF there are any former day traders out there, they'll know what I am talking about.
Today's savvy webmaster has to anticipate these changes and be ready for them. Diversify and be proactive, not reactive. Look at today's underdogs as tomorrow's kings.
IMHO
My 2 sites have an extemely unusual demographic group compared for that which would interest the typical posters in this forum, which are mostly those who are commercial webmasters. Those curious can figure out how unusual from my profile here. My site will skew almost totally to teenagers and young adults, and disproprortionately male. Except about 10% of the users, which from the search terms used seemed to be concerned parents, with some medical professionals tossed in. My site's users spread over a wide range of people in the previously mentioned subgroup in terms of income, education, etc. From 15 year olds with a C average, to college students with a 3.6 GPA, and young professionals.
My site tends to get great SERPs in all the engines. What I am seeing is this. Google/Yahoo/AOL are way out in #1. Of those 3, Google itself is a strong #1, and Yahoo/AOL split the rest. Beneath Google/Yahoo/AOL I get a good chunk of hits from msn.com. However, when it comes to all the other search engines, I just get a small trickle of hits from the lot of them.
Make of the above what y'all will. However, from my point of view Google/Yahoo/AOL is king, msn.com the prince, and all the other engines low ranking bureacrats in the kingdom.
Search this site for Zeal. If the site is non-commercial, it can get into Looksmart free through Zeal. Paid Looksmart listings can get you to the top at MSN too.
[bizreport.com...]
So in your case, MSN is veree, vereee, goood to yooo.
The same holds true across many industrial sites.
I for one think that October 9 was a bad day for industrial marketing on the web. The Yahoo and LookSmart/MSN directories typically returned very relevant results for most items. Google was all over the place and now its even worse.
The point of all of this is that MSN traffic continues to improve for me because of the L$ directory and PPC is going nuts. However, it all has to do with the categories that I am in.
