
16% of the queries on Google each day are brand new (never seen before) - kunle
http://www.google.com/ads/answers/numbers.html
======
latch
I actually don't believe that...or, at least, I don't believe it means what I
think I'm supposed to believe it means.

If they do 3 billion queries per day[1], that's almost 500 million new queries
every day. You gotta figure most misspellings and typos are repeats..

[1] [http://www.quora.com/How-many-search-queries-does-Google-
ser...](http://www.quora.com/How-many-search-queries-does-Google-serve-
worldwide-every-day)

~~~
bjoernbu
I assume the 16% are supposedf to mean 16% for distinct queries. The well-
known queries and common typos are entered a lot more frequently - so a huge
portion of those 16% may actually just be bored people googling for "fist-on-
keyboard"

~~~
wisty
If that's the case, it's a very misleading statistic. If you have 1 million
each of "facebook", "fcaebook", "facebok", "faceook", and "fakebook", and one
"asdweniviwnxoemmgmejvj v fef", it's kind of spin to say "we’ve never seen 16%
of the queries we see every day."

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meric
Interesting facts, but here's one I didn't understand:

"By 2012, there will be 2.3 billion mobile devices in use, the equivalent of
70% of the world’s population."

What does that mean? Something bad will happen between now and beginning of
January? Virus infecting drones (mobile devices), to terminate 3.5 billion
people, so that 2.3 billion = 0.7 * world population in 2012, for example?

~~~
joelhaasnoot
That statistic is weird however you might want to interpret it because it in
no way accounts for people having multiple phones, which is in no way rare.

~~~
wanorris
I'm sure it's not rare as in unheard of, but to have any significant impact on
the number of people carrying 2.3 billion devices, there would need to be
hundreds of millions of people with multiple phones. I have no idea of the
statistics, but I wouldn't think it would be anywhere near that common.

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RyanMcGreal
I'm interested to know whether the novel query rate is changing over time. If
it's increasing, that might be an indicator that google users are trying to
refine their search terms in response to the creeping SEOization of the search
results they're getting.

~~~
wanderful
"Creeping SEOization" could also be stated as keyword space filling up—a
natural effect of the web growing—so queries are getting more specific.

Another possible factor is that users are becoming more savvy search users, or
even trusting that they will get meaningful results for novel queries (e.g.
Vietnamese Restaurants in Saskatoon).

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mmaunder
Thought this stat from the "Search improves the bottom line" was a little
lame:

89% of the traffic generated by search ads is not replaced by organic clicks
when ads are paused.*

Google Search Ads Pause Studies, July 2011 *For those who have been running
paid search campaigns.

My parsing of this interprets it as: "89% of advertisers aren't dumb enough to
compete with their own organic SEO traffic by placing paid ads sponsoring the
same keywords."

~~~
xekul
I have organic listings ranked in the top 1-3 spots for my niche and I'm still
buying Adwords for the same keywords, because PPC really does drive different
traffic compared to organic. A few months ago Google suspended my account
(apparently by mistake) and I noticed a significant drop-off in traffic. When
my account was reinstated, I was happy to be paying for traffic again.

~~~
iqster
Are you saying it is worth it for the NY Times to advertise on the search term
"NY Times"? I see examples like this all the time but it makes no sense to me.
In fact, the only ad-links I click on are these.

You just gave me my first data point from the web site owners perspective ...
that your traffic goes up enough for it to be worth it. Why do you think this
is the case? I would really appreciate any insight on this!

~~~
moheeb
I would say it is. I know my parents routinely click on the ads at or near the
top of the google page thinking they are the legitimate search results.

~~~
iqster
You're right. But that doesn't make sense to me. I do the same thing. The
point is that I would end up clicking on the search result anyways had the
paid link not been there. What am I missing here?

~~~
blauwbilgorgel
It is a very cheap way (quality score is high for your own business name) to
advertise the fact that "this is a business that is reputable/savy/spending
enough to invest in ads and appear on Google." I really don't know how much
that is worth, but it must count for something. Especially if you use Adwords
for branding campaigns.

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ra
A few years ago I heard Sergey say it was 20% ... so I guess the number is
gently trending down.

Would be cool to see the curve for this.

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toumhi
I would think search queries are getting less diverse now, especially with
google suggest giving you autocompletion - I find it very often gives much
better results to look at the top domain queries (e.g "online marketing
strategies", "online marketing tips", "online marketing best practices" for
marketing), look at the results, have a feel for what the right wording is,
and then refine your queries.

I find that much easier to do than randomly type the first sentence that comes
to mind.

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Hitchhiker
Very interesting. This one is one level up on the tree:

<http://www.google.com/ads/answers/>

~~~
eridius
I'm amused at the juxtaposition of these two:

>Five stars beat four stars every time.

> When you’re hungry, the best sandwich is usually the closest one.

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electromagnetic
> By 2012, there will be 2.3 billion mobile devices in use, the equivalent of
> 70% of the world’s population.

Given that the world population is estimated to hit 7 billion next spring, I
think this number is a bit absurdly off. 70% of 7 billion is 4.9 billion.

I think google should use google next time they need to find out the world
population, because they're estimating it at 3.3 billion.

~~~
onemoreact
By population I think they are limiting it to 'people who use the internet and
could use google'.

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fakeer
another proof human is actually creative :-)

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pastr
Thanks for defining brand new.

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slouch
Is this new? Am I just finding this after John Andrews' post a few days ago as
a coincidence? <http://www.johnon.com/764/seo-myths.html>

