Hitwise is releasing some of it’s data through a public portal according to this press release.  The data is kinda useful though and it’s free - something the rest of HitWise is not.  

The information is more, or less, what they have been releasing all along; for example, leading SE’s in August 2006 is the same as the press releases they are putting out - same information.

Hitwise US - Leading Search Engines - August, 2006
This list features the top 4 leading search engines based on US Internet usage, ranked by volume of searches for the 4 weeks ending August 26, 2006.

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Rank Search Engine Volume
1. www.google.com 59.99%
2. search.yahoo.com 22.78%
3. search.msn.com 11.86%
4. www.ask.com 3.37%

Source - www.hitwise.com - August, 2006 - based on volume of searches.

Maybe the best feature of the new HitWise portal is the Top Keywords by Industry Segement (ie: Goverment)

Hitwise US - Top 10 Industry Search Terms - August, 2006

The terms listed below are ranked by volume of searches that successfully drove traffic to websites in the Hitwise Government category for the 4 weeks ending August 26, 2006, based on US Internet usage.

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Rank Search Term Volume
1. fafsa 0.76%
2. ako 0.44%
3. failure 0.43%
4. social security 0.24%
5. california lottery 0.22%
6. irs 0.22%
7. noaa 0.21%
8. florida lottery 0.19%
9. dmv 0.17%
10. fasfa 0.16%

The segmentation that HitWise provides is valuable - so I like this part.  I’d like to ask them to give me about 3 times the information (ie: top 30 words, not only top 10, and allow some demographic data, and I think the portal would be the perfect free tool.

Here’s the PR below:

Hitwise Launches Data Center On Public Website
Top-line Competitive Intelligence Data Available for use by Academics, Marketers and General Public
 
NEW YORK, September 13, 2006 – Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, today announced the launch of its new DataCenter. The HitwiseDataCenter features a sampling of the online usage and search data that Hitwise offers through its online competitive intelligence service in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong markets. The DataCenter is available to marketers, businesses, bloggers, academics, media and the general public.
 
Hitwise data is based on the online usage and search behavior of how more than 25 million Internet users interact with more than 800,000 websites across 160 industry categories. In the US market, Hitwise data is based on a sample of 10 million Internet users.
 
The HitwiseDataCenter is updated monthly and will feature key data points and statistics on a market-by-market basis including:
 
  • Top 25 Most Visited Websites based on market share of visits
  • Leading Search Engines by volume of searches
  • Top 10 Industry Search Terms from across 20 pre-selected industries, from the more than 160 industry categories reported on by Hitwise
  • Monthly rotating Online Usage Report from a featured industry
  • Top Four Fast Moving Websites based on market share of visits
  • Links to Latest Blog Posts by Hitwise research analysts
 
The US data center is located on the Hitwise website at:
www.hitwise.com/datacenter
 
Outside of the US, the data centers are located on each respective market website:
www.hitwise.co.uk/datacenter
www.hitwise.com.au/datacenter
www.hitwise.co.nz/datacenter
sg.hitwise.com/datacenter
www.hitwise.com.hk/datacenter
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