Around this time last year, I looked at browser market share in the context of Google’s Chrome browser release. The market has definitely changed quite a bit since last year. Most surprisingly for me is how Chrome rebounded from a soft launch. Firefox, Chrome and Safari now account for nearly 31% of search queries worldwide, up 50% over September, 2008. Interestingly, Firefox and Safari have both grown by almost 45% in their combined market share vs. November, 2008.
At first glance this particular data set doesn’t appear to help much with SEO. But usability is a major concern of any SEO, and browser compatibility is key to usability. So SEOs need to understand these trends and plan accordingly to render properly within the leading browsers.
Separately, my friend Cindy Krum is always asking me about mobile browser data. Total mobile browser market share now surpasses 1% of all search engine referral browser views. Not surprisingly, the iPhone leads the pack at is at almost 0.6% marketshare, which is significant, and double the share vs. April of this year. RIM, Opera and Android and a few others make up the remainder. One year ago, Android was a non-issue. Now, it’s 0.04%. Still tiny, but noticeable. SEOs need to pay attention to this emerging trend. The real estate in the organic listings on the mobile browsers is much smaller, and the likelihood of people on mobile browsers going to page 2 in the results is also lower, so being at the top of the page one listings in mobile really is all that matters.
|
July 2009 |
August 2009 |
September 2009 |
| MSIE (all) |
67.59% |
66.75% |
66.61% |
| Firefox |
19.09% |
21.99% |
21.13% |
| Safari |
5.12% |
6.86% |
7.08% |
| Chrome |
1.83% |
2.27% |
2.38% |
| iPhone |
0.45% |
0.59% |
0.58% |
| Android |
0.04% |
0.04% |
0.04% |
About the data. Enquisite works with thousands of sites worldwide and captures a trove of relevant search-related data every day. The browser shares reported here are based on data from a selection of Enquisite-tagged sites that cumulatively represent over 350 million page views/month, across most major industry sectors - a very significant sample size.
Lastly, yesterday marked the kick-off for SMX East. Sadly, I’m not going to be there this year, as I had to bow out at the last minute for personal reasons. I know a few people, Jessica Bowman among them, had commented that were looking forward to some data, so in that vein, I hope this provides some insight into what’s going on in the search world. More data on blog posts to come.
postscript - for those who don’t like having 2 windows open… here’s the numbers from last year…
| Date |
Chrome |
Firefox |
Safari |
MS IE (All) |
| 09/30/08 |
0.501% |
15.007% |
4.321% |
79.832% |
| 10/15/08 |
0.433% |
15.387% |
4.178% |
79.592% |
| 10/20/08 |
0.462% |
15.643% |
4.296% |
79.183% |
Posted under Analytics, Browsers, Chrome, Enquisite Search Metrics, Market Share, Search Engines, Search Metrics
As you probably remember, we released the first full version of Enquisite back in August. After our initial release, we didn’t miss a beat–we got right to work on tweaking existing features and adding new ones. I’m happy to tell you today about the first of a series of new features, all centered around the concept of turning data into action.
The first new feature we’re going to discuss is the Potential Analysis. I’d like to thank Andrew Shotland for providing an original version of the formula upon which we ended up basing the math behind this analysis feature on.
The Potential Analysis is found within the Longtail report in Enquisite. It looks at search phrases and calculates a value based on the following variables;
- Referral rates - The number of referrals for a given term
- Conversion rates - The number of conversions a particular term generates
- Page views - Average page views/visits for the phrase
- Time - In seconds, the average time/visit for the phrase
- Bounce ratio for the phrase - The number of sessions driven by the phrase where the visitor left a page or site without visiting any other pages before a session timeout occurred or the total number of sessions driven by the phrase during an interval.
- Activity - in relation to the other terms, and outcomes
Two things worth pointing out:
- A bounce occurs when a website visitor leaves a page or a site without visiting any other pages before a session timeout occurs (we set this to 15 minutes).
- There’s a known issue when it comes to sample size. The larger the sample size, the higher the accuracy of the analysis. In other words, the more referrals, the more accurate the analysis.
Potential Analysis runs automatically and is displayed next to the appropriate column in your Longtail reports. By default, it’s turned on to show you the potential of your keywords. The way it works is simple. There are four levels of potential: High; Medium; Low; and None. A keyword with high potential has a good chance of keeping visitors on your site longer, looking at more pages. Keywords with no potential have virtually no chance of keeping a visitor’s interest.
But why does this matter? Well, for one thing, it helps you make better choices. If you’re interested in selling advertising on a page and are wanting to optimize that page to gain visitors, isn’t it good to know which terms are worth optimizing for? Think about it from a longtail perspective: If you have multiple variations of a phrase driving all traffic, the Potential Analysis will show you the phrase that will have the best ROI for you–in one simple box.
Now think of potential in relation to actions or conversions. Using Potential Analysis, you’ll be able to decide which phrases to optimize (or ignore) even if you have multiple converting phrases arriving on a particular web page from search referrals. This kind of analysis will help you take the guesswork out of the process and make quicker, more effective decisions.
Posted under Google, Search Analytics, Search Metrics
Welcome to 2009… where, like last year, I’m tempted to use the first line of this space to repeat my refrain of “I’m sorry for not writing more often.” I really am. And while I won’t go so far as to swear that I’ll write more blog posts in 2009, I do think that my schedule will make it a bit easier to get some blogging done.
I think that this year will be different, for a variety of reasons–the most interesting of which I should be able to share with you sometime after mid-January. Keep your eyes on this space, as a lot of last year’s hard work is soon to be unveiled.
Exciting things are happening around Enquisite, not the least of which is the recent addition of several new major features being added to Enquisite Pro. Over the past several months, we’ve completed 3 updates: first came the Opportunities Report, followed by the Potential Analysis functionality, and just last week, Map Overlays. Rather than describe all three right here, I’m going to let the suspense build a bit–I’ll give you the scoop on each feature individually in upcoming blog posts. ;-)
But first, a sneak peek at the next major update we’re tackling: our new Links report. Rand Fishkin has been eagerly (and somewhat patiently) waiting a seemingly infinite amount of time for this one–and it’s almost here. Though it’s still in production, we’ve shown it to a few folks and the general reaction to it is that they’re blown away. The Links Report will be delivered over the course of several iterations, with additional functionality being added as programming on it is completed. The first piece you’ll receive will be reporting, and the second starts into analysis. Right now, everything is on track for this to start coming out during January.
Anyhow, Happy New Year to everyone. You’d better strap on your seatbelts–we’re all in for one heck of a ride in 2009!
Posted under Analytics, Search Engines
