Hitwise analysis included in the forthcoming Hitwise Canada Search Report reveals that nearly one third (30%) of Canadian Internet searches are not successful – forcing Canadians to re-search to find relevant results. An average of 70% of searches in Canada were “successful” in the twelve weeks to June 27, 2009 (average of all search engines). A successful search is defined as one where the consumer leaves the search engine after performing a search. This means that 30% of searchers were forced to conduct a fresh search, no doubt partially motivated by search results that failed to return a useful result.
Hitwise analysis of success rates for various search terms indicate that the problem may be a result of international results appearing in the search engine results, forcing Canadians to re-search, adding the qualifier “Canada” to the query.
For example, as the following table reveals, for the search term “wedding dresses” the success rate is much higher on searches that include the word “canada” in the query. While the success rate for searches for “wedding dresses” is 84%, it is 100% “wedding dresses canada”.

Searches for brand terms are particularly prone to a have a higher success rate with the word “canada” included in the search:
· The success rate for searches for “walmart” was 88.83% while for “walmart canada” it was 92.54%.
· The success rate for searches for “home depot” was 84.25% while for “home depot canada” it was 92.33%.
This provides an obvious opportunity for search engines to improve relevancy of results but also provides an opportunity to marketers to attract customers through paid search engine listings. In particular, brand marketers could take the very basic step of bidding on the brand term to ensure that the relevant website is at the top of the search engine results page.

Click here to request a complimentary copy of the Hitwise Canada Search report.
Update: I posted the success rate by engine here. Thanks.