15.8 billion visits to search engines in the UK in first half of 2012, Experian Hitwise reveals
There were 15.8 billion visits to search engines in the UK between January and July, with a growth of 652 million visits, research by Experian Hitwise has found.
It was found that on average, the UK is making an additional 93 million visits per month to search engines: an average year-on-year growth of 4.3 per cent in visits.
James Murray, digital insight manager at Experian Marketing Services, said: “Not only is search growing, it’s also changing. The way that UK Internet users are searching is becoming more complex.
“These search trends are changing slowly but it is an indication of more sophisticated, web-savvy search behaviour and a move away from simple search phrases. Increasingly longer search phrases are being used with four or more words per search phrase.
“Shorter searches still make up the majority of UK search with 50% of searches conducted in July 2012 containing one or two words. However, you can see that year-on-year, the proportion of searches containing one, two or three words are declining, whereas the proportion of searches containing four or more words are increasing. As search continues to advance, the long tail is going to become ever more important in UK search.”