rgoad
Hitwise did some analysis on this recently in the UK and found 170,000 distinct ’how to’ search terms: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/07/how_to_save_money_in_a_recessi.html
Hi there - we’ve just punlshed an update to this story using Hitwise data - it seems like the recovery process is long and slow...http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/04/how_long_does_it_take_to_recover_from_a_google_blacklisting_gocompare_update.htmlRobin Goad, Research Director, Hitwise
It’s been a couple of months since this happened, so we’ve psoted an update on the Hitwise blog that whos how Gocompare’s recovery is going:http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/04/how_long_does_it_take_to_recover_from_a_google_blacklisting_gocompare_update.htmlThanks, Robin
The Hitwise search data very much bears this out - both in terms of the growth in navigational search (e.g. people searching for ’bebo’, ’ebay’, etc.) and the amount fo searches we see for, say, ’www.nyspace.com’. I suspect that it’s primarily driven by toolbars and search bars. For example, typing ’www.myspace’com’ into your Google toolbar is still a couple less clicks than havign to clear the address bar, especially as if you search for a URL rather than just a brand name the toolba will usually take you right to the site rathern than a search page.
Hi there - as the author of the post, I thought I’d chip in with a couple of comments. Fisrtly, I agree that the site wasn’t banned from Google, which is why I wrote ’blacklisted’ in inverterd commas.Secondly, we wrote this yesterday following a tip off and at that time there wasn’t much info on the web about what had actually happened. Since then quite a few blog posts have emerged giving a bit more backgound, and I’ve added links to these in the comments box at the bottom of the post. It does seem like paid links were the main culprit.Thanks, Robin
Story: The DIY trend: The Market and the Search for “How To”