Length of 8+ Keyword Searches in the US increases 20 percent

Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key sites online. US February data from Hitwise shows that Google has increased their US market share by 8% (72% uses Google) causing Yahoo and MSN to loose 17% and 20% of their share of US visitor searches.

What’s interesting is that the length of search queries has increased over the past year. Longer search queries, averaging searches of five to more than eight words in length, have increased 9 percent between February 2009 and February 2008. Searches of eight or more words increased 20 percent. The same time period showed that shorter search queries — those averaging one to four words long — have decreased 2 percent.

Looking at the log files or your company’s web analytic tool you’ve probably noticed that people use longer and longer search queries to find your site. Due to increased competition on one-word searches and more search-savvy internet users people know that using longer phrases can get you faster to your desired target. Here at Ad Sheik, among our top 20 keywords we find several with 4 words or more:
“top 10 hispanic websites”
“us hispanic population 2009″
“2008 top hispanic websites”
“social media usage asia”
“youtube cuidade con el angel telenovelas”

Many languages needs more words to say the same as in English – estimates say Spanish, for instance, need 25% more characters in general – and it’s extremely easy to make mistakes when doing web copywriting. The statistics showing that 5+ keywords are increasing means your multicultural paid search campaigns will have to take this into account. When almost 20% of searches are done 5+ keyword phrases this has to be taken into consideration when creating web page copy and PPC campaigns for the future.

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