Three is the magic number for search queries

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chitika.pngAccording to ad network Chitika, while the highest ad click rates were for search queries of 4, 5 and 6 words, it was three-word search queries that drove the most organic traffic.

The number of searches involving just one word has slipped over the last few years from 24.5% in 2007 to 20.4% in 2009. Meanwhile, approximately 23.6% of 2009 queries involved two words. Just over 45% of the searches tracked by Hitwise last year consisted of 3, 4 or 5 word searches.

Based on a sample of 41,103,403 impressions of search traffic coming into their network between June 13th and 19th 2010, Chitika found 26% of organic search-driven traffic was the result of searches containing three words. Shorter queries failed to produce quite as much:

Two words: 19%
Four words: 17%
One word: 14%

What does this all mean? According to Chitika’s blog, “It means that there is a very definitive sweet spot in search optimization – ranking high for popular queries between three and five words long should see both optimal traffic and conversions”.

When it comes to ad click rates, Chitika found longer queries in the 4, 5 and 6 word range resulted in the highest click rates at over 1%, tailing off as queries lengthened.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kristina Knight-1
Kristina Knight, Journalist , BA
Content Writer & Editor
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Kristina Knight is a freelance writer with more than 15 years of experience writing on varied topics. Kristina’s focus for the past 10 years has been the small business, online marketing, and banking sectors, however, she keeps things interesting by writing about her experiences as an adoptive mom, parenting, and education issues. Kristina’s work has appeared with BizReport.com, NBC News, Soaps.com, DisasterNewsNetwork, and many more publications.