We do want what Google Suggest!

July 1, 2009
by Stephen Murphy

Google Suggest – Behavioural Impact on Search

A little while back I blogged on the impact that the introduction of Google Suggest could have on search trends. Some of the key trends expected and discussed were:

• Search Volume on suggested terms would increase
• A drop off in the level of traffic being generated through long tail terms
• Suggested terms becoming more competitive in terms of their bidding landscape

By running a few tests through the Google Insights for Search tool, it is pretty clear that this development has had a defined impact on the way users are searching for specific products. By starting a search for Car Insurance, Google now presents the user with a number of options, including those highlighted above.

So, what is the impact of presenting users with search term refinement?

The answer seems pretty clear from the information generated through Google Insights:

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Based on these statistics, it can be estimated that search volumes have developed in the following way between March and June 2009:

• Car Insurance Quotes – up by 64%
• Car Insurance for Young Drivers – up by 103%
• Car Insurance Compare – up by 52%
• Car Insurance Comparison – up by 9%

Car insurance and home insurance are clearly two of the most competitive marketplaces for paid and natural search, so by looking at home insurance suggestions made by Google, we can also make the conclusion that the keywords being pushed are also those being increasingly searched upon by users. The following graph displays the same date range but for a search on home insurance:

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Again, using the statistics within Google Insights, we can see the following shifts in search volume over the past 3 months:
• Home Insurance Quotes – up by 154% (this is the first suggestion made by Google)
• Home Insurance UK – up by 43%
• Home Insurance Comparison – up by 41%

From these results, as well as a number of other searches being performed, we can see that the suggestion which Google makes first within the list receives a significant boost to search volumes.

Within the pet insurance market for example, the growth in comparison led search is clearly evident, despite a relatively limited number of aggregator sites for the product. As well as this general shift in market search volume, the Google Suggest development in the UK has also further fuelled this trend, with search volume for the “pet insurance comparison” keyword increasing by 131% since the change at the start of April.

A more extreme example is “travel insurance comparison” which again is Google’s first suggestion should you type in “travel insurance” as your query. Growth of 367%! Admittedly, awareness of aggregators is on the up and peak seasonality looms, but last year’s data gives us a pretty good indication of seasonal impact and discounts this as the overriding influencer. These stats are displayed below:

(click on the image to display a larger version)

So what about the Long Tail?

When looking closely at Google search query reports, we are able to not only identify the search terms which people are typing when they are being matched, we are also able to identify the shift in the number of words being included in their queries. Some interesting stats about the long tail are highlighted below, comparing Q2 2009 (since the introduction of Google suggest) with last quarter and the same quarter last year:
• The frequency of unique queries has declined by 6% between Q1 2009 and Q2 2009 for home insurance
• Unique queries declined by 12% between Q2 2008 and Q2 2009
• The length of user queries has been relatively consistent with the same period in 2008

What you should be doing!

Make sure you are taking advantage of the relatively basic information that Google provides through its insights tools and constantly work to improve the quality and relevancy of the keyword list you are using:

• Use the Google search based keyword tool
• Make sure you run search query reporting on your campaigns
• If you have access to Hitwise, utilise their Search Intelligence hub to find search term suggestions
• Conduct search term Gap Analysis to spot opportunities and compare your keyword lists to those other sites and your competitors are using to drive traffic
• Remember to negative match effectively if you want to improve the efficiency of your campaign

The most important consideration outside of growing your account is ensuring that these changes in search patterns are not damaging your campaign. If comparison search is being fuelled by Google suggest, but you aren’t price competitive then you might need to consider how you position yourself in the listings. You may even want to avoid comparison led search.

Horses for courses!