Search engines accounted for the largest share of upstream traffic to the Retail 500 ahead of cross-shopping on other retail websites and email during the holiday months of November and December. An integral part of every retailer’s marketing strategy; the share of visits being referred by the combination of paid and organic search has grown over the past two seasons. In December 2008, search represented 30% of the upstream traffic to the Retail 500, an increase of 6% from the previous year.

It is no secret that Google captured a greater share search market during 2008, representing 66% of all searches in January 2008, growing to 72% of all searches by December. The growth is also similar to the share of Google-referred traffic within the retail category, where retailers received a higher share of referrals from Google during the holidays. The share of upstream traffic in January from Google represented 64% of the search-referred traffic to the Retail 500, increasing to 72% in December. Over the past two holiday seasons, referrals from Google have increased, growing 12% in 2007 and 23% in 2008 over previous years in November. In December, Google-referrals increased 13% in 2007 and 18% in 2008 over previous years.