A VERY interesting post tonight by Search Engine Watch on people’s search patterns and how often people include the domain extension while searching and which extension they include.
The author calls it “Navigational Search” when someone goes to a search engine like Google and searches for say Amazon.com rather than just Amazon.
“A navigational search is defined as any search phrase that doubles as a website address (think anything containing the suffix .com, .net, .org, etc)”.
The author says that “About 12.5 billion searches were performed in July on the Big 5 search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, AOL Search) in the United States. Of those, approximately 1.9 billion were navigational in nature, or more than 15 percent of all searches in a given month.”
“Of the 1.9 billion navigational searches, 83 percent were with the “.com” suffix.”
So if 83% of the navigational searches used the .com extension then 17% of them used another extension.
The post continues:
“”The notable fact is that the “.com” percentage is decreasing year over year, down from 85% in July 2009.”
“As the global Internet keeps expanding and ICANN continually revamps their domain registration rules, we’re seeing large increases in search activity for the less popular web address suffixes.”
| Top 5 Web Address Searches (ranked by volume) – July 2010 |
|
| .com | 1.57 Billion |
| .net | 90 Million |
| .org | 78 Million |
| .edu | 39 Million |
| .gov | 32 Million |
“Since last July, “.edu” is up more than 80 percent; “.org” is up 12 percent; even “.tv” is up almost 85 percent.”
Now the author of this story is Eli Goodman who “leads the business development and research team for comScore’s search division, where he plays an integral role in educating the industry on how to best utilize search data in both practical and innovative fashions. He is an 11-year veteran of the technology and market research industry, with experience in search, online media, public relations, and marketing.”
“Prior to joining comScore, Eli worked at Hitwise”.
An Impressive guy with some great search analysis background so definitely check out his full post.
The fact that 15% of the people use domain extensions while performing searches in search engines in my opinion shows the added importance of having a great domain name.
As a side note, its interesting that according to the figures in the post, .net’s are included in searches at a rate of about 5% of .com’s which is the rule of thumb for value of .net’s to .com’s.
It of course would be interesting to see how many searches include such extensions like info, .me and .us.
I have the MBA in SEO from a prestigious SEO ivy league University and I have the paper qualification to tell you that dot mobi rules –yes dot mobi will be #1.
Happy Now??
MBA-my big A-ss
I have noticed that when looking at analytics stats for my sites that the traffic for quite a few of them is for searches “keyword1+keyword2+.com” or “www.keyword1+keyword2.com” and my keyword1+keyword.TLD site ranks at Google for that search term. I’m also seeing some searches for keyword1+keyword2.tld where the TLD is the TLD of my site. Those are likely individuals who have visited previously and just type in the domain into the search bar rather than typing it in directly.
Question – if you search for keyword/s.com at Google and the .com is parked, does it outrank a well-developed site in another TLD with the same keywords? I don’t know.
Very interesting data analysis! Thanks!
Two trends can change what the user actually sees:
1. Google has recently started to show more of their Thick-Client strategy with real-time search completion – aka “Google Instant”. A user may not get to the domain extension as they are distracted with results flashing up in real-time.
2. vISPs (Set-Top-Box) providers have a new generation of gear coming that sits between the user and the legacy Internet. It will be a Super-Thick-Client compared to the Google toys. Opportunities to have users interact with “Wizards” will allow the vISP to be part of the online experience.
In both cases…
The current simplistic model of users wired to info via domains and extensions is pushed into the background, hidden from view. It may remain for a generation or two but eventually will fade away. This is like Windows users being migrated off of DOS.
Had ICANN not perpetuated the artificial scarcity of the name spaces, the movement to thick-clients may have been slowed. Developers, vendors and
service providers can no longer wait for ICANN.
We manage one site where about 1/2 of our G inbounds come from people searching our exact address. This particular example has a very dynamic social networking web- significantly more so than our other sites. I don’t know if the two metrics interrelate and if so, how, but we’ve noticed a corollary between the maturity of our viral marketing and the number of people who navigate via search engine by directly typing in our address, as opposed to inbounding via an on page optimized keyword.
I suspect somewhere in all of this is something relevant, but I can’t figure it out.
I’ve seen this happen in real time with less sophisticated internet users. If they want to go to a site they’ve visited before, such as Amazon.com, they think they’re supposed to enter it into the box at Google rather than their address bar.
Interesting that people will type in by the tens of millions a search containing a different extension as well.
The .com supremacy will soon fade away
Most people don’t care anymore about extensions, to say the truth. They type their thing in Google and raus.
Jim
If you believe this, you should by any extension you can as cheap as you can with the keywords you want.
plenty of good .gd out there
“.net’s are included in searches at a rate of about 5% of .com’s which is the rule of thumb for value of .net’s to .com’s”
Yikes!
5% is that the going rate for .net?
And that’s the second best extension. So that must put valuations of .org .tv .co etc down near 1% of valuation of .com?
I thought the rule of thumb for .net was 10%?
Em
I always looked at the sales of Sex.com, sex.net, porn.com and porn.net, which all happened fairly close to each other and the prices of the .net were just about 5% of the .com
I must agree with Andrew.
I have watched this several times and when I mention “direct navigation” by typing a name straight into a browser with a .what ever? Many are surprised and aren’t even aware that this is possible.
I call it the new search generation. While many of us used the internet quite different in the 90’s “direct navigation”, times have changed. Search engines are much more sophisticated. The new generation is lazy and they want a variety of info quick. Also most web browsers are set with a search box when opened and you have a search box inside the browser also. So the question is how long until direct traffic disappears?
By the way, many domainers think direct navigation can’t be completely controlled just because they own the address xyz.com or any other .whatever address!? Your wrong! There is a way to take control of direct navigation. It just hasn’t been explored/implemented yet. I will defiantly not be the one to post how this can be done, but be sure the time is coming and direct navigation could be eliminated up to 99%. It’s so easy it makes me wonder why it has not been done yet.
@ Leonard Britt
Parked domains don’t get any credit. They will probably, in the future not even show up in search at all!
$300,000,000
http://PLAYBOY
“(Reuters) – Playboy founder Hugh Hefner changed American pop culture, one centerfold at a time.
With his Playboy Enterprises Inc in talks to be sold for about $300 million, the 83 year-old Hefner will be giving up control over the iconic adult entertainment empire he founded that was instrumental in shaping society’s opinions on nudity, sex and free speech.
With $600, Hefner in 1953 published the first Playboy magazine with a partially nude photo of Marilyn Monroe at its center. The magazine would become not only one of the most successful publications ever, but also a brand that led many Americans to think about sex in a more carefree way.
“Hef” turned Playboy and its bunny head logo into a symbol for a lifestyle he embodied as bachelor extraordinaire, living in a mansion surrounded by wealth and beautiful women.”
“Of the 1.9 billion navigational searches, 83 percent were with the “.com” suffix.”
.Com is the universal extension. The traffic for searches with other extension will increase, but so will .Com exponentially. .Com will rule the Universe for the foreseeable future or at least until they release the .God extension.
i have google up alot and often i think i’m typing into the navigation bar when actually i’m typing into google.
“An Impressive guy with some great search analysis background so definitely check out his full post.”
Sounds like a job for John McCormick.
“Question – if you search for keyword/s.com at Google and the .com is parked, does it outrank a well-developed site in another TLD with the same keywords? I don’t know.”
@ Leonard
Yes, it does, (but shhh, don’t tell Mr G or he’ll kill that too) 🙂
Yikes!
5% is that the going rate for .net?
And that’s the second best extension. So that must put valuations of .org .tv .co etc down near 1% of valuation of .com?
————————————————-
I don’t think so. This metric is probably pretty irrelevant to the ‘values’ of domain names and more relevant to people using Google as a navigational proxy to arrive at established web presences for reasons having nothing to do with whatever domain name the website happens to use.
It’s probably safe to say that the vast, vast, vast majority of these browsers aren’t ‘curiosity navigating’ – where they just bolt .com onto a keyword that represents a topic they’re looking for (which would be very relevant to domains) and type it into google. What I’d like to see is how much of that 83% is of clearly established websites- people typing in Amazon.com, ebay.com or whatever. It’s probably a big figure- personally speaking, I do it all the time.
Unlike address bar type-ins where the searcher has a loose idea of the topic they’re after but no idea where he’s going in terms of web presence, I’d suspect the giant majority of these people know the precise website they’re after and are just using google to get there. This has nothing to do with domain names, a lot to do with people chasing down a desired, established user experience. I’m sure the ratio of people searching google for ebay.com compared to to auction.com is absolute.
The disparate percentage of .com names being searched in relation to .net, or whatever, is probably just reflective of the preeminence of .com in terms of those web properties that receive the most traffic in general.