Shopping and classified-listing Web sites got 14.9% of their traffic from Google during one week in August, according to metrics just published by online measurement firm Hitwise. Yahoo! Search and MSN Search came a fairly distant second and third, driving 4.7% and 2.3% of all visits to sites in those categories for the same week.
Significantly, 2.5% of traffic to the shopping and classified sites during the week ending Aug. 26 came from social networking site MySpace.com. In that same week, MySpace.com had 4.9% of all U.S. Web visits. A similar study six months earlier showed Myspace.com driving 1.3% of all visits to shopping and classified sites; but in the ensuing months, the popular social network has increased its market share of visits by 67%.
The Hitwise report emphasizes both the important role that search engine advertising performs in driving visits to online retail sites and the growing importance of social networks in doing the same. “Search is a proven method of acquiring traffic and Google is the leader in driving online retail site traffic,” Hitwise general manager of global research Bill Tancer said in a release. “With the growth of MySpace.com and others, online retailers should expand their focus beyond search to consider social networking sites as a source of additional traffic.”
The top three generic search terms bringing visits to the shopping and classifieds categories during the month of August were “lingerie”, “sex toys” and “Halloween costumes”, according to Hitwise. Among branded search terms, “ebay”, “craigslist” and “walmart” topped the list. “Barbie”, “ipod” and “heelys” — the sports shoes with skate wheels in the soles — were the leading product search terms for the month.
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