Search giant Google accounts for more referrals than all other online properties to car manufacturers' Web sites, according to a new study by research firm Compete. Google accounted for 6.8 million
referrals to auto manufacturers' sites in the second quarter--more than any other search engine, portal or third-party auto site, according to the study. Search engines as a whole were responsible for
10 million visits to car sites in the second quarter--58 percent more than portals and 48 percent more than third-party auto sites.
Compete also found that branded terms outperformed
non-branded terms when it came to lead generation. Eighty-five percent of sessions that ended with a consumer choosing a "locate a dealer" option on an auto site were from branded search terms, while
83 percent of sessions that ended with a "start lead submission" option originated with branded search terms.
--Shankar Gupta
