5 Things We’ve Learned from Google about Search & the Economy

Last week, Google shared some of what it’s seeing as it relates to search, the economy and retails sales.  Thought you might find it interesting too:

1. Search volume is actually higher than ever right now.
2. Search audiences are spending more time than ever before researching. They will take up to 15 – 20 minutes trying to locate a specific product or deal that they’re looking for.
3. Speaking of deals, search queries for coupons has sky-rocketed. Keyword searches relating to coupons are out-pacing typically popular searches for celebrities like Britney Spears.
4. Searchers have become more and more savvy over the past two years. For example, compared to 2006, one-word search phrases have dropped from 48% of the time to 33% of the time in 2009.
5. Searchers are using more variants and modifiers to their search queries. A product search in 2006 that received ~ 50 variants on its search would now receive ~ 75 variants.

Does any of this surprise us given the economic times, the kinds of paid search campaigns we manage and what we’re seeing?  No, but it’s certainly validating to have our trends confirmed!

Related posts:

1. Google Search Goes Universal
2. From the Google Labs: Google Experimental Search
3. Why is Google Stingy with Search Results?
4. Local Search 25% of Online Commerce Activity

1 Comment »

1. Very well explained. Thanks for the info.

     Comment by Patrice — August 21, 2009 @ 6:31 am

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