December 21 2000

Search engines refer only a small part of Web traffic

As of Dec. 17, 2000, search sites accounted for only 6.86 percent of global referrals, according to WebSideStoryís StatMarket. Direct navigation (i.e. addresses typed into the browser address bar) and bookmarks together accounted for the largest percentage of referrals, with 47.01 percent. Internet links (including banner click-throughs and affiliate links) were responsible for 46.13 percent.

ìThis data shows two things: That most people already know where they want to go on the Web, and that Internet links, such as banner advertising and affiliates, still remain a very viable way to attract customers,î says Geoff Johnston, vice president of product marketing for StatMarket. ìThis information may cause businesses to rethink the ways in which they acquire new visitors.î

Well, yes, maybe. People involved in the search engine community may indeed have exaggerated the importance of search engines and directories, and there are other ways of finding search sites than by using the likes of Google and Yahoo!.

Nevertheless, when people are selecting a bookmark, they are actually revisiting a site they have been to before. The question is: How did they find it in the first place? Don't we all return to the same sites over and over again? Very often you'll find that people found these sites the first time by using a search engine.

We have noticed that a lot of people tend to enter the URL (Web address) of sites they visit often, especially if this site has an easy to remember address (like www.pandia.com). Now, where did they get that URL? From magazines and friends, certainly, but all of them...?

Geoff Johnston is certainly right when he says that banner advertising and affiliates are ways to attract customers, but not because these statistics show that search engines are lousy traffic generators.

The fact is that click-trough rates (i.e. the number of people who click on banners) have dropped dramatically during the last couple of years, and that relatively few click on affiliate program links.

Behind the words "relatively few" may hide a lot of Web surfers, however, enough to form the basis of a viable business. The fact that we do not click on a banner the first time, does not necessarily mean that we have not seen it. The next time we might pay the site a visit, by clicking on a banner or using the URL. This is one important part of the concept called "branding". This is certainly true for affiliate programs. We read, reflect, compare and select.

All this means that statistics like these should be read carefully. The numbers do not convey the whole message.

• StatMarket
• WebSideStory