Google Power for estate agents in Leeds and Wakefield

Independent internet market research company Hitwise reveals the dominence of the world leading search engine Google and its importance for companies which feature high on its search results pages. At Manning Stainton we have a continuous programme of web optimisation to ensure that we figure prominently on search results pages. Success in this area means that our selling clients are found by more prospective buyers and thereby increasing their chances of a sale.

Estate Agents with low Google rankings place their clients at a severe disadvantage.Google websites account for over one-third of all UK Internet traffic. We continue to optimise our site for popular searches such as "estate agents in Leeds".

Hitwise data for March revealed that Google Internet properties send over one-third of all Internet traffic to websites in the UK: a custom category consisting of the 100 most visited web properties in the UK that are owned by Google Inc. accounted for 36.55% of upstream traffic to All Categories of websites, up from 30.19% in March 2007.

The most visited Google property in the UK was Google UK (www.google.co.uk); with a market share of 7.77% of all UK Internet visits in March 2008, it was also the most visited website in the UK. Google UK was also the website that sent the most traffic to other websites during March, accounting for 27.48% of upstream traffic to All Categories. This was followed by Google (www.google.com), which had a market share of 1.70% and accounted for 4.43% of all upstream traffic.

Google is also benefiting from other areas of Internet search that are being driven by the growth of so called 'universal search' - the process of integrating video, image, news and other content in traditional search results. The fourth most visited Google property was Google Image UK (images.google.co.uk), which accounted for 0.58% of UK Internet visits in March. However, this website is even more important as a source of traffic, accounting for 1.27% of all upstream traffic sent to other websites in March, making it the third most important Google property in terms of sending traffic to other websites. Other Google search websites in the top 10 include Google Maps (maps.google.co.uk) at 8th position and Google News UK (news.google.co.uk), at 10th.