At the beginning of the new year I’ve noticed a lot of backwards-looking traffic in my analytics. Many of you are finding this blog while looking for insight into the top mobile search queries entered in 2008. A number of other blogs reported these in December of 2008 when the engines released them, but to my knowledge none of them gave search volume for the queries, and few places have even aggregated the content into a single page. Therefore, search and you shall receive… I give you the top mobile search terms of 2008, as reported by Yahoo! Mobile, AOL Mobile and Google Mobile India:
- Yahoo! Top Mobile Searches 2008
- MySpace
- Craigslist
- Movies
- Weather
- Olympics
- The Dark Knight
- Kim Kardashian
- eBay
- AIG
- AOL Mobile Search Top Mobile Searches 2008
- MySpace
- AIM
- iPhone
- MocoSpace
- Craigslist
- Weather
- Free Ringtones
- MapQuest
- Match.com
- Google Mobile Top Mobile Searches 2008 – Google India
- orkut
- yahoo
- waptrick
- gmail
- games
- katrina kaif
- rediffmail
- yahoomail
- namitha
- The Yahoo! and AOL lists have the following four terms in common:
- craigslist
- myspace
- weather
…which makes a total of 26 unique mobile search terms between the three engines. I took those 26 queries, assigned a category using Ad Intelligence as a guide, and assigned both desktop search volume and Google mobile search volume according to the new Google mobile keyword tool’s estimates. The results were pretty interesting and I’ve included them below:
number | keyword | approximate avg mobile search volume (per month) | approximate avg desktop search volume (per month) | percent of desktop query volume | category |
1 | myspace | 13,600,000 | 185,000,000 | 7.35% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Internet/ Web_Communities/ Social_Networks |
2 | yahoo | 2,740,000 | 151,000,000 | 1.81% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Internet/ Search_Engines |
3 | waptrick | 2,740,000 | 2,240,000 | 122.32% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Consumer_Electronics/ Mobile_Phones_&_Accessories/ Mobile |
4 | mocospace | 2,240,000 | 2,240,000 | 100.00% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Internet/ Web_Communities/ Social_Networks |
5 | 1,500,000 | 30,400,000 | 4.93% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Internet/ Web_Communities/ Social_Networks | |
6 | weather | 1,000,000 | 45,500,000 | 2.20% | Local Interest/ Weather |
7 | craigslist | 823,000 | 45,500,000 | 1.81% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Internet/ Web_Communities/ Social_Networks |
8 | free ringtones | 673,000 | 4,090,000 | 16.45% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Consumer_Electronics/ Mobile_Phones_&_Accessories/ Mobile |
9 | games | 673,000 | 101,000,000 | 0.67% | Arts_&_Entertainment/ Video_Games |
10 | 673,000 | 68,000,000 | 0.99% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Internet/ Search_Engines | |
11 | movies | 450,000 | 45,500,000 | 0.99% | Arts_&_Entertainment/ movies |
12 | gmail | 368,000 | 37,200,000 | 0.99% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Internet/ |
13 | ebay | 246,000 | 37,200,000 | 0.66% | Shopping/ Antiques_&_Collectibles |
14 | mapquest | 201,000 | 16,600,000 | 1.21% | Local Interest/ Maps |
15 | aim | 135,000 | 7,480,000 | 1.80% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Internet/ Web_Communities/ Chats_&_Forums |
16 | iphone | 110,000 | 16,600,000 | 0.66% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Consumer_Electronics/ Mobile_Phones_&_Accessories |
17 | kim kardashian | 90,500 | 4,090,000 | 2.21% | Arts_&_Entertainment/ celebrities |
18 | olympics | 90,500 | 7,480,000 | 1.21% | Sports_&_Recreation/ Multi-sports |
19 | yahoomail | 90,500 | 3,350,000 | 2.70% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Internet/ |
20 | aig | 33,100 | 1,000,000 | 3.31% | Financial_Services/ Insurance/ Life_Insurance |
21 | match com | 27,100 | 1,500,000 | 1.81% | Families_&_Relationships/ Dating |
22 | the dark knight | 18,100 | 2,740,000 | 0.66% | Arts_&_Entertainment/ movies |
23 | orkut | 14,800 | 1,500,000 | 0.99% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Internet/ Web_Communities/ Social_Networks |
24 | katrina kaif | 720 | 110,000 | 0.65% | Arts_&_Entertainment/ celebrities |
25 | rediffmail | 480 | 165,000 | 0.29% | Computers_&_Electronics/ Internet/ |
26 | namitha | 170 | 49,500 | 0.34% | Arts_&_Entertainment/ celebrities |
28,537,970 | 817,534,500 | 3.49% |
I’ll be doing a larger post on popular Google mobile queries in the future, and the data is what it is given that it’s an estimate of the total opportunity and not actual search query volume, but a few observations on the data for now:
- Certain mobile queries have as much or more of the volume that the same queries have on desktop. In total the mobile search volume for all of these queries is more than 3% of the total search volume, which is larger than the 1% I’ve heard anecdotally.
- The query “free ringtones” is one that would almost certainly be interpreted as being a mobile query, given that it’s for mobile content. Yet the volume is only 16% of the total volume. I would expect it to be higher.
- A lot of the usual suspects come up in terms of popular mobile search categories: mobile social networking, celebrities, local interest, arts and entertainment. There are some keywords (like AIG, the Dark Knight) that are seasonal drivers and wouldn’t necessarily represent long term opportunities for traffic. However, they do demonstrate the popularity of news searches in mobile search.
- Again, no adult queries. This is likely due to the data being filtered beforehand. I will look at adult queries and other popular categories in a later study.
What should marketers take from this look at last year’s mobile volume drivers? Let me put it this way: if you or your clients were selling anything in 2008 that related to any one of these things and you didn’t target mobile users, you missed out on millions of impressions and possible conversions. The engines provide this mobile search data so we as marketers can take advantage of the opportunity today. Hopefully this list makes that a little easier for marketers to understand the mobile opportunity and target the most qualified mobile users in 2009.
Bryson,
Great study. Many of these queries seem navigational in nature, which is to be expected, even on the desktop.
Queries like yahoo, google and myspace are certainly navigational. Are mobile searchers just looking for a convenient path to their favorite Web hubs or are they actively searching with open eyes, looking for new content, brands, information, etc.?
Here are a few of the queries, at a glance, that aren’t navigational:
movies
weather
olympics
the dark knight
kim kardashian
free ringtones
games
You could argue that some of the queries above aren’t navigational, like “AIM” or “iPhone,” but it’s also easy to rule these out because it’s likely that these searchers already have their destination in mind before performing their search.
Based on the above non-navigational queries, I’d say that mobile search intent is still centered around a few areas:
local information (weather, movies, the dark knight)
quick statistics, information, data (weather, the dark knight (ratings?), olympics (who’s winning what events)
entertainment (kim kardashian, movies, the dark knight, games, ringtones)
Very interesting data, Bryson, thanks for the study.
Dan
Glad to see more on target talk about mobile marketing. I would like to add that since mobile navigation is a bit cumbersome and time consuming most people are initially performing searches to find their information and then save/bookmarking their favorite sites. So the search volume may not reflect the true volume of actual mobile phone uses preferences when it comes to their keyword interests.
Just a thought. Thanks for the information keep it coming…
I would like to add that since mobile navigation is a bit cumbersome and time consuming most people are initially performing searches to find their information and then save/bookmarking their favorite sites.