• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, November 28, 2008

A new analysis by Hitwise, reviewing the 30 leading e-commerce brands in the Airlines, Appliances and Electronics, and Insurance categories revealed that in the four weeks ending September 27th, 2008 an average of 87% of searches for the top branded search terms sent visits to the brand owner's website.

USAA was one of the most successful at protecting its brand, receiving 96% of visits from searches for "usaa". Similarly, United Healthcare received 94% of visits from searches for its brand and Northwest Airlines 92%.

At the other end of the spectrum, a top 10 Appliances and Electronics retailer received 66% of visits from searches for its brand, a top 10 Insurance provider 78% and a top 10 Airline 75%.

Hitwise research shows, though, that more than 1 in 10 US Internet searches for leading brands is led away from the brand owner's website. When searching for a brand in the phone book, that brand's competitors are not included in the listing. But online searching frequently includes that brand's competitors in the sponsored listings.

Online brand protection is not an exclusive concern of major retail categories, says the report. The second downstream website for searches for "drudge report" was Google News, receiving 3.79% of visits from drudge report searches. The website, BestWebGifts.com received 1.93% of visits from searches for "American red cross".

Misspelling the brand name or combining it with a product term in the search string also reduces the direct brand hits. Though 96% of searches for "usaa" went to the USAA website, that figure dropped to 78% for searches for "usaa insurance" while 12% of the visits went to USInsuranceOnline.

And, while 90% of visits from searches for "southwest airlines" went to the Southwest Airlines website, that dropped to 66% for searches for "southwest airlines reservations," notes the report.

Websites Receiving Traffic From Search Term "Southwest Airlines Reservations"(4 weeks ending September 27,2008)
Website	Landing Percent
Southwest Airlines	66.34%
Lowfares.com	20.60
CheapAir.com	2.91
Source: Hitwise, November 2008

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