Almost half--48 percent--of visits to food and beverage reference sites originated at search engines for the week ending Nov. 12, according to numbers released by Hitwise Wednesday. The research group
considered that a high number compared to shopping and classifieds and grocery and alcohol sites, which received 30 percent of upstream visits from search engines over that period. The share of
searches for "recipes" was up 25 percent for the week ending Nov. 12, versus the prior week, and visits to the top 10 recipe sites were up 9 percent in the same period. Hitwise said it can be expected
that recipe searches and visits to recipe sites will increase by upwards of 50 percent for Thanksgiving week. In 2004, searches on the term "recipes" increased by 84 percent Thanksgiving week compared
to two weeks prior, and visits to the top 10 recipe sites increased by 59 percent in that same period.