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Earlier this month, AOL released sensitive search data detailing 20 million searches preformed by 658,000 subscribers. While the AOL data obviously raises privacy concerns, it can contain useful information for search engine marketers.

Which result page gets the most clicks?

The AOL data allows us to find out how many people visit more than one result page on AOL:

91.63% of the AOL users clicked on the results on the first result page. Only 4.49% clicked a result from the second result page, 2.19% clicked a result on the third result page and even less people looked beyond the first three result pages.

Which search result position gets the most clicks?

The AOL data also allows us to find out which search result gets the most clicks. The following diagram shows the percentage of user clicks per search result position:

Being #1 on the search results is best by far. 47.16% of the users clicked on the first result. That means that the first position in the search results gets almost half of the traffic.

It this also true for Google and Yahoo?

The numbers are for AOL users. Google and Yahoo users might be from a different demographic group than AOL users and they might have different search behavior. AOL users are often less tech-savvy, when compared to Google users.

What does this mean to your web site?

The AOL data shows how important it is to be listed on the first result page. The higher your search engine rankings are, the better.

To be listed on the first result page on Google and other major search engines, optimize the content of your web pages and make sure that your web site has good inbound links.

Optimized web page content and good inbound links are the most important factors for high search engine rankings. If your web site has both, it will be ranked on the first result page of all major search engines.

Yahoo gains over Google in online search share in July

"In July 2006, Yahoo! sites posted modest market share gains for the second consecutive month to reach 28.8 percent of U.S. searches, trailing Google sites, which registered a 43.7 percent share.

Google's share declined 1 percent from the previous month, ending its impressive 11-month run of consecutive gains. Microsoft sites held steady in third position with 12.8 percent share of searches, while Time-Warner (5.9 percent) and Ask, a division of InterActiveCorp, (5.4 percent) each showed modest market share gains versus the previous month."

Google quietly opens up writely

"Despite all its fans, Google opened up public sign-ups to Writely, its online word-processing application, late last week with little fanfare."

Not allowed to google? Yahoo invites you to yahoo

"There's been some reports about how Google is trying to stop people from using the term, googling. [...]

Most companies, including ours, spend a great deal of time trying to turn our brands into household names. In fact, we just kicked off a marketing campaign called 'Your Yahoo! has changed' that is meant to encourage people to have fun with our brand by creating their own commercials."

Search engine newslets

• MSN AdCenter live in UK.
• Yahoo! to extend internet service to Orange users.
• Ask.com gives movie answers.

Waging war against click fraud

"When it comes to click fraud, search engines are on the defensive. In lawsuits, advertisers accuse Internet companies of failing to adequately guard against a practice that's lining the pockets of scam artists and artificially inflating ad rates."

 

3 AOL workers depart over privacy breach

"AOL's chief technology officer left the company and two other workers were fired in the aftermath of a privacy breach that involved the intentional release of more than 650,000 subscribers' Internet search terms."

'Google-creep' strikes again as website puts itself up for sale

"An American online calendar company has been forced to put itself up for sale on eBay after the internet giant Google moved into its space with a rival product."

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