Leadpile’s Blog

Craigslist took over the top spot for the most searched term that Internet users clicked through to in the United States, during the week ending March 14. Myspace had held the top spot as the most popular term since March 2006.    According to Hitwise, “U.S. searches on the term “craigslist” have increased 105 percent for the week ending March 14, 2009, compared with the same week last year.”  Why is this?  Could this increase in searching “craigslist” be a result of the economic position many consumers are in?  Either way, this is positive for Craigslist!  

So, who will be the next king of the hill?

Publishers in The Leadpile Lead Exchange certainly look at Craigslist as a place to promote their websites and the Leadpile offers. Those that are not, should maybe look into this site as a potential source of traffic.

Much has been written and spoken about Twitter recently.  Some people love it, and others view it as a waste of time.  Also, the lack of a business model that produces revenue has been discussed.  Does Twitter act like email, search, and/or social networking?  The answers currently appear to be no, no, and yes.

This week, the people at Hitwise came out with some research on where people are going after visiting Twitter.  Indications are that Twitter is acting more like social networking than search or email.  Two out of five visitors are visiting social networks or entertainment sites after visiting Twitter.

At this point, very little Twitter traffic is visiting retail sites (search activity) nor is the traffic visiting finance, business or dating sites (email activity).  It appears to be more about social networking and distributing content, especially photo-sharing, than on selling products or services.

Things are sure to change rapidly, but it appears that the monetization of Twitter and its growing traffic is a work in progress.  This potentially huge opportunity is still there for the taking.

Everyone is still scrambling to get their shopping done, and Black Friday/Cyber Monday is officially over. These days, more and more people are looking to shop online to find the best deals, save time and energy.  To help with this cause, I researched some top retail websites listed by Hitwise.  This information is based on total internet usage through the end of last month. Maybe these are where the deals are at and we should ALL take a look.

1.  www.amazon.com

2.  www.walmart.com

3.  www.target.com

4.  www.bestbuy.com

5.  www.circuitcity.com

6.  www.jcpenny.com

7.  www.toysrus.com

8.  www.kmart.com

9.  www.khols.com

10. www.overstock.com

According to Hitwise, there is a lot of traffic being driven to these popular retail sites through email marketing.  Searching for the best deals is becoming a lot more convenient for customers because you don’t have to go physically store to store buying each store’s best deals.  While looking at these various sites myself, I will say that it looks like all of them have major deals going on and FREE shipping. My prediction is Cyber Monday is going to eventually become more and more popular than Black Friday.
I am sure companies that also work with Leadpile Lead Exchange, are currently working with online retailers to capitalize on this demand for increased traffic. This is a perfect example of how beneficial affiliate marketing can be to online companies!

What if television was like search engines? Let’s say you have basic cable with 46 channels… can you imagine the reaction and the uproar if everyone was watching only four of those channels? What if they were really only watching one channel with a few (crazy?) people watching the other three channels. Well, this could be the old Soviet Union or the current situation with today’s search engines.

Surprisingly, little is said about just how dominant Google is in this very important part of everyday life. The Hitwise numbers for the end of June are out and Google’s control of the search activity continues to GROW. They are up 8% over last year, and almost 7 of every 10 searches are done on Google. It’s even worse in Australia and the UK where Google almost accounts for 9 of 10 searches. Can it possibly be good that one company has such huge market share?

There has been a lot of talk about Yahoo and Microsoft combining their search efforts. Well, those two giants combined account for 25.08% of recent search activity. (Yahoo – 19.62% and MSN – 5.46%) The fourth channel, I mean search engine, is ask.com accounting for 4.17% of the searches.

We do have at least 42 other search engine options…sadly, only 1.7% of all searches were done on these other sites. Search engines are the primary way that people navigate the internet, and Google continues to dominate and even grow their market share. How is it that we are presented with more options in most facets of everyday life, but the emerging internet presents us so few options. Can this domination be good for anyone other than Google shareholders?