Google give more - But Yahoo Converts
Posted on January 18, 2008
Filed Under Search Engine Wars
While we are on the subject of search engines, lets talk about the two engines that drive the majority of SERP traffic. Google and Yahoo.
Without getting into specific numbers we can say that for every 5 visitors that Google sends to my sites, Yahoo will send 1. This is off of raw keyword traffic both short and long tail.
Through comparing numbers I recently discovered something astonishing regarding the traffic sent by both Google and Yahoo. Even though Google sends approx %500 more traffic than Yahoo, I found that my sales conversion numbers from the two search engines were roughly equal.
What does that mean?
- It means that according to my numbers, within my niche- Yahoo searchers buy approximently5x more than a Google searcher.
- its means that the type of person using Google is looking for information and entertainment, but a Yahoo searcher is looking to purchase.
Since my site in question with these heavily favored Yahoo results is focused on non-essential retail goods and collectibles that appeals to a 40+ Audience, we can assume the following
- Yahoo searchers are going to be older and less web savvy (ie…they wont be reading this blog)
- Yahoo searchers are using the web as specific and focused tool in order to accomplish a task (ie find a specific piece of information or buy something)
- Google Searchers use the web more liberally, going online as a form of entertainment, passive research/learning and time wasting.
so what does this all mean in the end?
- It means that within my niche and for many others, Yahoo traffic, while substantially less in numbers, is much more valuable in terms of cashflow because the Yahoo searcher is focused and purposeful compared to the Google searcher.
- It also means that I need to take another look at my PPC Campaigns, but that is for another post.
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3 Responses to “Google give more - But Yahoo Converts”
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[…] of Google. Luckily at this point my Yahoo index had just started to appear and similarly to how I discuss in another post, Yahoo visitors generally are more serious about their searching and shopping and will convert […]
Yes , i Highly agree with this, i get more traffic from google but yahoo converts users, customers ect.
WOW…glad I read this. I was relying almost wholly on Google to send me my traffic!