uber.la

Okay so Google has 82 – 72% of the search market depending on who you listen to. And no matter which report you pay attention to Yahoo runs a distant second place with less than a third of the volume.

Okay, so that IS impressive. And your search campaigns can safely be aimed directly at Google's algorithms.

Traffic vs Search Engine Volume according to Hitwise.

top 20 sites and search engines 4-11-09

But are we over valuing Search?

So looking now at the Volume of overall web traffic Grand Google clocks in at less than 7% of all traffic. Hold on, SEVEN PERCENT?

So if we do the math (switching to excel for second) Google has 72% of the search volume but only 6.54% of overall traffic. So 92.46% of folks are NOT getting where they are going by GOOGLING.

I know I'm Amazon-ing, iTunes-ing, Twittering, Blip.fm-ing, and all kinds of other site-ing it. And I would guess that the web saavy of the crowd will have a profile that comes closer to this analysis of the uber.la traffic.

30 traffic source for uber.la

So of the 30 percent of the traffic to uber.la that was generated by search, all but 36 of them came through Google.

That leaves 772 unique visitors (I have filtered my household IP address out of my Google numbers) who found my site in ways that don't involve Google.

And I would guess that closely mirrors my web working habits. I usually know where I am going or am responding to a Tweet or email. And if I don't I will use the default (Google) search function in Firefox.

But how do we get from approximately 30% of traffic volume of uber.la to the Hitwise statistic of less than 7% of the traffic in the larger, global, web? The answer is English. Outside the US Google does not own the market as firmly as they do in the use. In China Google is not even first.

So in the US, English speaking, tech-focused world, probably a third of all traffic is "directed" via Google. But as you move beyond our borders, the social media sites and links become much more influential than search. And when you think of Google as having less than 7% of the traffic worldwide, well, it is important that you consider alternative strategies.

It's a global web out there, make the most of it.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/7percent

Tags: algorithms, china, global internet traffic, global search, global web, global web traffic, google, google free search, google market share, google search, hitwise, internet volume, non-google, QQ, search and social media, search campaigns, search engines, search market, search volume, social media, statistic, traffic source, traffic volume, un-google, unique visitors, web traffic