Surfers Use Search Engines to Find Top Internet Brands

Posted on January 20, 2006

People like to enter the top Internet brands into search engines according to recent study by Nielsen NetRatings. The study found that the top ten keywords were all popular brands and that a several of the top keywords searches are websites with search engines. The top keywords were eBay, google and yahoo. The study was unable to indicate whether the searches were being made by savvy or unsavvy web surfers.

"There are two types of online searchers that type a Web site's URL into a search engine rather than into the browser's address bar: Those inexperienced enough not to appreciate the difference between the two, and those that are so experienced they have become habituated to using the search engine as their portal to the Internet," said Ken Cassar, chief analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Whether this behavior is driven by ignorance or savvy, the end result is the same: The search engine is the focal point of the online experience for Internet users across the spectrum."
A list of the top keywords is provided below.
  1. ebay: 13,871
  2. google: 13,301
  3. yahoo: 7,997
  4. mapquest: 7,431
  5. yahoo.com: 6,528
  6. pogo.com: 4,062
  7. walmart: 3,688
  8. ask jeeves: 3,389
  9. msn: 3,166
  10. ebay.com: 3,125

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