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300 Million Queries, Old Google, Cyber Week, Location Data Is Like Ground Beef

Greg Sterling

300 Million Queries, Old Google, Cyber Week, Location Data Is Like Ground Beef

Rand Fiskin has published a massive new study of more than 300 million Google search queries (Datos data). The study excluded app-based searches and those on "specialized Google platforms," such as Shopping or Maps. There's a lot there, so take a look; we'll highlight the main findings. On average users conduct just over 120 searches per month or roughly 4 searches per day. The "head" is very "fat": just under 150 search terms made up roughly 15% of all queries in this 21 month study. Most of these terms are navigational (or branded). Fishkin's data argue that 53% of queries are informational (less than others have argued), 32% are navigational (e.g., "YouTube"), 14.5% are commercial and a tiny 0.7% are transactional. The top 10 topics by search volume (in order) are Arts & Entertainment, Computers/Technology, Ecommerce/Shopping, Games, Science/Education, Sports, Finance, Social Media, Hobbies/Leisure and Adult. (Fiskin points out that 37% of Google searches have low commercial value.) Branded search terms comprise 44% of total volume, with "generic" keywords making up 56%. He adds that zero-click answers (including AIOs) dominate "5 of the 9 biggest categories of query demand." Finally Fiskin advises: target audiences (off Google) rather than "millions of query permutations" on Google.

Source: SparkToro

Our take:

  • There's a lot of great data here but generally few surprises, except maybe the concentration of queries and the ranking of query categories.
  • The big takeaway is: you need to build a brand off Google so that people will search for you directly. Since the DOJ and click revelations, people have been discussing this. It's harder in local, though not impossible.
  • The implied customer journey discussion is instructive as well. Google isn't the beginning of the customer journey, it's more in the messy middle.