Internet Related Statistics
UK specific:
- 76% of UK adult Internet users find out about local services online. Ofcom, August 2008
- In the past year, UK female Internet users have made an average of 17 online purchases of products/services and spent an average of £600. eMarketer, February 2009
- 97% of UK female Internet users research products online and 92% of UK female Internet users buy products online. eMarketer, February 2009
- 33% of shoppers in the UK shop a lot more online since the recession. Media & Marketing, March 2009
- Online spending in the UK grew 25% to £18.4 bn in 2008, outperforming the 2.1% increase in total retail. Verdict Research, May 2009
- Despite the recession, UK online shoppers had spent an average of £10 more per site visit in April 2009 than this time a year ago. (April 08 to April 09)NMA, May 2009
- Over 1 in 3 (34%) UK adults have researched a brand that they have seen advertised online. TGI Net Q109 (Oct 07 - Sept 08), Q2 2009
- Search is most popular in the UK (85%), France (83%) and Spain (83%) -- ahead of the US (77% reach). Nielsen//NetRatings' Burmaster
- In the UK, search engines are the largest category, traffic-wise, overtaking adult Web sites in October 2006. Hitwise's Hopkins
- On Ask.com UK, searches were more commercial, such as searches for "car insurance" and "share prices". Hitwise's Hopkins
- Market share of visits to UK search engines was up 22% year over year in December; but other categories grew faster, including Net Communities & Chat, up 34%, News and Media, up 24%, and Food and Beverage, up 29%. Hitwise's Hopkins
- Google (www.google.co.uk and www.google.com) powered 77% of UK internet searches in the four weeks leading up to February 10, 2007; Yahoo Search (uk.search.yahoo.com and search.yahoo.com) powered 8%; Ask.com (uk.ask.com and www.ask.com) 5%; and MSN Search (search.msn.co.uk and msn.search.com) 5%. Hitwise's Hopkins
- Yahoo Search is growing rapidly – up 12% in the past year; Google is up 6% year on year, while MSN Search and Live Search are down 15% year on year; Ask.com UK is down 30% year on year, but up 12% in past 6 months. Hitwise's Hopkins
- 80% of the total U.K. online population visited a social networking site in May 2009, with Facebook and Bebo attracting the most unique visitors over the course of the month, according to data from comScore's World Metrix audience measurement service. Overall, social networking was the second most popular online activity in the U.K. during the month of May, based on average time spent per user, 4.6 hours, trailing only instant messaging at 8.6 hours.
- On Google UK and Yahoo UK & Ireland Search, searches for Web 2.0 properties MySpace and Bebo were more prominent. Hitwise's Hopkins
- Remote (home) shopping has grown three fold in a decade - from £9.7bn to £26bn. Growth fuelled by the Internet accounts for 74% of the market, compared with 4% in 1998.Verdict Research UK, 2009, December 2008
- More than 70% of 16-24 year old internet users use social networking websites (compared to 41% of all UK internet users). Ofcom 2006
- 37% of 18-24 year olds have contributed to a blog or website message board (compared to 14% of all UK internet users). Ofcom 2006
Europe
- 41% of Europeans claim to have changed their mind about what brand to buy as a result of researching choices online. Mediascope Europe, November 2008
- In February 2009, Eurostat reported that 32% of citizens in the EU-28 had purchased an item over the Internet during 2008. (Figures for big markets: UK 57%, FR 40%, DE 53%, IT 11%, ES 20%). Commission of the European Communities, February 2009
- Search made up 47% of online advertising in Western Europe in 2008. PricewaterhouseCoopers, June 2008
Global
- 64% of top-level executives conduct six or more searches per day to locate business information. Google, Forbes, BtoB, June 2009, June 2009
- Price has become a less significant determinant in online purchasing: online shoppers citing price as the deciding factor in choosing a retailer has fallen to 44.0% in 2008 from 50.0% in 2007.Verdict Research, May 2009
- YoY from the 2007 to 2008 Christmas Sales period, online sales increased by 31% while in-store sales decreased by 1.3%. Retail Week, January 2009
- With online sales up 13.3% in 2009 and 10.9% in 2010, the Internet will take further share from the high street.Verdict Research, May 2009
- 41% of shoppers use search engines to identify new websites.Verdict Research, May 2009
- For the third successive year it is those aged 25 - 34 who are the most frequent online shoppers.Verdict Research, May 2009
- Over half (51.0%) of consumers are using the Internet before making a purchase in shops, educating themselves on the best deals available.Verdict Research, May 2009
- 3 out of 4 of the top media vehicles for increased brand fame are online. Coke Oasis, March 2009
- Over 90% of online merchants are planning to add rich media and social networking functions in 2009. Internet Retailing, February 2009
- 256 million people visited a search engine in December 2006 – 81% of the global Internet population. Nielsen//NetRatings' Burmaster
- The search audience has grown by 10% over the last year, while the total Internet audience grew 8%. Nielsen//NetRatings' Burmaster
- The search audience has grown most dramatically in France (27%) and Spain (21%), ahead of the US (8%) – however, the US is still biggest market by far.
- Google's audience has grown almost 2.5 times the rate of search's – continuing to eat into the share held by its competitors. It now has almost 3 times the audience of nearest rival, Yahoo Search. Nielsen//NetRatings' Burmaster
- The average searcher views 93 search pages a month across 27 minutes, which represents 3.4% of total time spent on the Internet. Nielsen//NetRatings' Burmaster
- France and Spain have the heaviest users of search; US searchers are the lightest users. Nielsen//NetRatings' Burmaster
- Around two-thirds of searchers visit at least two search brands. Nielsen//NetRatings' Burmaster
- Searchers behave differently on different search engines. Hitwise's Hopkins
- Based on click through activity from August 1, 2006, to January 20, 2007, Google had a 71.6% share of the global search engine market, an 80.2% share of the UK search engine market, and a 78.4% share of the French search engine market. Enquisite's Zwicky
- Yahoo had an 11.1% share of the global search engine market, a 5.5% share of the UK search engine market, and a 3.8% share of the French search engine market. Enquisite's Zwicky
- From January 20 to February 12, 2007, Google's share of the global search engine market dipped to 67.1%, it slipped to 76.1% in the UK, and slid to 76.9% in France. Enquisite's Zwicky
- The primary beneficiary appeared to be Yahoo, which saw its share of the global search engine market increase to 14.9%, rise to 8.3% in the UK, and improve to 5.3% in France. Enquisite's Zwicky
- Total online advertising revenues have increased almost eight-fold in real terms between 2001 and 2005 (from £0.17 billion to £1.3 billion per year). Ofcom 2006
- Online advertising revenue is now almost three times greater than radio advertising revenue (at around £0.5 billion, unchanged since 2001 in real terms) and over one-third that of television advertising revenue (£3.8 billion in 2005, up from £3.5 billion in 2001). Ofcom 2006
- SMEs including sole traders, account for 99.9 per cent of UK businesses and make an important contribution to the economy based on turnover and job creation (Kumar, 2007; European Commission, 2006; SBS, 2006, Curran, 1999).
- It is estimated that between 1 and 2 clicks out of 5 (20-35 per cent) are fraudulent and because of this the cost of PPC can be very expensive when using generic keywords such as “insurance” (Fleischmann, 2006; Glow et al., 2006; Freeman, 2005).
- 79 per cent of search engine users do not look at PPC (sponsored listings) at all or only look at them after looking at organic listings (Hotchkiss, 2004).
- Across Google, Yahoo! MSN and AOL — 60.5% clicked on a natural (or “organic” or “algorithmic”) search result, while 39.5% clicked on a paid search advertisement
- Search users are up to 6X more likely to click on the first few organic results as they are to choose any of the paid (PPC) results. OneupWeb.
- 5 out of 6 commercial purchases which originate from search originate from the free (or organic) side) and from Atlas on PPC stats. Jupiter.
- Combined AOL User Search Data, Hitwise Search Engine Market Share and Overture Search Tool data (Total Searches: 9,038,794,Total Clicks: 4,926,623):
Percentage of clicks received:
| Ranking Number 1 | 42.1 % |
| Ranking Number 2 | 11.9 % |
| Ranking Number 3 | 8.5 % |
| Ranking Number 4 | 6.1 % |
| Ranking Number 5 | 4.9 %. |
| Ranking Number 6 | 4.1 % |
| Ranking Number 7 | 3.4 %. |
| Ranking Number 8 | 3.0 % |
| Ranking Number 9 | 2.8 %. |
| Ranking Number 10 | 3.0 % |
| Ranking Number 11-1000 | 11.3 % |
- Hitwise finds:
The Search Market Share for Google: 60.2%
The Search Market Share for Yahoo: 22.5%
The Search Market Share for MSN: 11.80
The Market Share fore Everyone Else: 5.5%
- Where users click on the Search engine results:
| Position in organic search results listing | Click on links in this position |
| #1 | 51% |
| #2 | 16% |
| #3 | 6% |
| #4 | 6% |
| #5 | 5% |
| #6 | 4% |
| #7 | 2% |
| #8 | 1% |
| #9 | 1% |
| #10 | 2% |
| #11+ | 5% |
Note: Numbers don’t add up to 100% due to rounding
Source: Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger 2006. Prioritizing Web Usability
- An Eye Activity Study for first time viewing of search results by Enquiro, Did-it.com and Eyetools (2005) found that:
100 percent of the participants looked at the Google “Golden Triangle” (a small triangle at the top left of the search results). This area generally includes the top sponsored results, the top organic results and Google’s alternative results, including shopping, news or local suggestions.
Visibility dropped quickly with organic rankings. The top 3 spots had 100% of views, position 4 had 85%, position 5 had 60%, positions 6 and 7 had 50%, position 8 and 9 had 30% and position 10 had 20%.
80 to 100% of participants looked at top sponsored ads.
10 to 50% of participants looked at the side sponsored ads. The top ranked result received approx 50% of views, compared to just 10% for the 6th, 7th or 8th positions on the page.
Graphs
