The data is based on the top 1,000 unfiltered search terms in the U.S. across over 60 search engines. It does not include mobile.

Four different variations of the term “facebook” were among the top 10, accounting for 5.62% of searches overall (up 27% from last year). The top two terms stayed the same from year to year. Behind Facebook was “youtube” again at number two.

The top ten in 2011 were:

1. facebook
2. youtube
3. facebook login
4. craigslist
5. facebook.com
6. yahoo
7. ebay
8. www.facebook.com
9. mapquest
10. yahoo.com

For this year, the list looked like this:

1. facebook
2. youtube
3. craigslist
4. facebook login
5. facebook.com
6. yahoo
7. ebay
8. www.facebook.com
9. mapquest
10. amazon

Notice that “amazon” moved into the top ten for the first time.

Experian says that analysis of the search terms revealed that social networking-related terms dominated the results, accounting for 6.03% of the top 50 searches, an increase of 44% compared to 2011.

Google terms, including “youtube,” accounted for 1.91%, a 20% increase from last year. New terms that entered the top 50 included: backpage, cool math games, fox news, pinterest and pof (an acronym for dating site Plenty of Fish).

“Navigational searches continue to dominate the top search results as users continue to visit their favorite sites via search engines instead of directly entering a web address into their browsers URL bar,” said Bill Tancer, GM of global research for Experian Marketing. “Single-word searches grew 16% in 2012 as a result of continued reliance on search engine’s suggested results. Other top 2012 searches reflected the ongoing infatuation with celebrities online.”

The terms “yahoo” and “ebay” have been in the top ten since the ranking was started back in 2006.

Don’t count Google out just yet, however. New data from Experian Marketing Services shows some pretty impressive growth for Google+ in Brazil. According to the firm, Google+ saw a 5,750% increase in market share of visits (to all sites) between July 2011 and July 2012. In the UK, Google+ saw 476% increase.

Instagram and Pinterest are he major stars of the firm’s new report. In North America, Pinterest grew 5,124% and Instagram grew 17,319% between July 2011 and July 2012.

Take a look at this chart showing growth of the two networks in key countries:

Bill Tancer, Head of Global Research at Experian, commented: “The growth of both Instagram and Pinterest over the past year has been phenomenal. The reason for their success is that they haven’t tried to be ‘another Facebook’ to reach consumers. Both networks are image based which people love – we all relate better to pictures than just words.”

“For brands that are retailers for example, a site like Pinterest presents a fantastic opportunity to promote products in a compelling and organized way to a wide group of people across the world,” added Tancer. “Over the next 12 months, we expect to see a proliferation of niche social networks. Offering deeper functionality combined with a lower technical barrier to entry will mean new leaders in social media being created in a matter of days versus weeks and months.”

Here are the other highlights of Experian’s research:

As far as Pinterest is concerned, we can probably expect to see a great deal more growth as the service is now available to users without an invitation, it now has mobile apps, and it is expanding into more languages.

Experian has Google actually losing 3.4 % of the search market share over the course the past year. They put Google currently at 64.4% of the market. Bing and Yahoo!, on the other hand, have improved numbers over the comScore report, with a combined 30% market share as of April 2012. Bing is up 2% with a 14.3% market share and Yahoo! is up 1.1% with 15.7% of the search market.

It’s hard to know which report to trust in this situation. Both have year-long trends going in different directions, meaning either their data sets or their methods of parsing that data differ. Though the comScore report has not been officially released yet, the Experian data is based on a sample of 10 million U.S. internet users, and is for web searches only – meaning they are missing mobile searches, which have become a sizable chunk of Google’s searches. Also, the fact the Experian has Yahoo! with a higher individual share of searches than Bing is, intuitively, odd. Either way, it’s clear that Google has more than double Bing’s and Yahoo!’s market share combined. That means Bing is in for a long, hard battle if it hopes to take down Google with the new Bing layout it announced yesterday.

What do you think? Has Google sprung a leak or is Yahoo! sunk? Will the new Bing make a difference in the numbers this time next year? Leave a comment below and let us know.

It’s still early days, and we have a long way to go. But these are tremendously important changes, and with over 120 Google+ integrations to date (including Google Search, YouTube and Android), we are on the right track. Well over 100 million users are active on Google+, and we’re seeing a positive impact across the Web, with Google users being able to recommend search results and videos they like—a goal we’ve had ever since we started the company.

Activity on the Google+ Stream itself is increasing too. We’re excited about the tremendous speed with which some people have amassed over one million followers, as well as the depth of the discussions taking place among happy, passionate users—all evidence that we’re generating genuine engagement.

Experian backed up Page’s comments with a study of their own that verified that actual engagement on Google Plus was up 27% in the last month alone.

In the wake of the claims that Google Plus was a seldom-visited “ghost town”, the powers that be at Mountain View have sought to comunicate that Google is a different paradigm than, say, Facebook. It is not about Google Plus independent from other Google product offerings. Plus is simply a part of the overall Google experience, which includes search, YouTube, Gmail, Blogger, etc. These things integrate and support each other. So, even if someone does not “visit” Plus with the frequency they would Facebook – and why would most people? – their use of other Google products does contribute to an overall experience.

Using AudienceView, retailers can track and trend the online behavior of existing and potential consumers to better optimize online media planning and target their messages to reach and retain the most profitable and relevant segments. AudienceView combines anonymous data from the Hitwise online sample of 10 million users in the United States with the offline Experian Marketing Services ConsumerView database, which provides insights from 235 million U.S. consumers and 113 million households, with more than 1,000 different behavioral attributes.

“In an age when retailers are pitching messages to universal audiences utilizing every conceivable channel to see what sticks, marketers continue to be challenged in reaching customers who are no longer defined by the standard demographics of the past,” said Simon Bradstock, general manager and SVP of Experian Hitwise. “Retailers need to engage and make meaningful connections with customers to increase the lifetime value of the relationship. AudienceView solves this problem by providing deep and actionable insights and targeting on consumer segments defined by both online behavioral and offline lifestyle data. The result is increased revenue and deeper engagement with the brand.”

For example, when it comes to holiday retail planning, AudienceView can help retailers identify two distinct segments among toy buyers: parents versus nonparents. Parents buy toys year-round, while nonparents typically buy toys in November and December. AudienceView enables retailers to adjust media buys, messages and offers to target the two distinct groups, increasing marketing effectiveness and revenues.

AudienceView can help deliver insight on online behaviors of a retailer’s customers by matching them to the Hitwise online consumer data sample. This helps retailers get a complete picture of their current customers and find more of them online. They can get a two-year historical view of how segments of their current customers’ behavior have evolved and differ between groups.

AudienceView can help publishers and ad networks prove value of the target audience to advertisers. It can also help agencies and advertisers have a clear measure of how effective their campaigns were in delivering lift to site visitations, search and conversions.

"The study results are extremely telling, especially about measures that users take, or fail to take, in order to protect their identity while using social networks," says Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute. "I was surprised that those who had experienced identity theft in the past weren’t taking stronger measures to protect their identity. No matter who you are, if you want to increase social networking safety, you must take the necessary steps to protect your information."

Some highlights from the study include:

- About 65% of users don’t set high privacy or security settings in social media sites

- Over 90% of users don’t review a given Website’s privacy policy before engaging in use.

- About 40% share their physical home address through social media apps.

"Social networking sites give users the ability to share personal information, but they need to keep sensitive information out of easily-accessed public profiles," says Jennifer Leuer, general manager of ProtectMyID.com. "If people aren’t careful, identity thieves can quickly gather all the information they need to commit fraud, and that’s why it’s so important to be selective about the information shared and use a product like ProtectMyID.com, since it provides early fraud detection and resolution."

Interestingly, the study found that people who have been victims of identity theft in the past are just as likely to be lax in securing their personal information online.

Seventy percent of coupons-using households get their coupons from newspapers. However, the Internet is a growing coupon resource. Over the last three years, the number of households that get their coupons online has increased by 46 percent.

Click rates trended higher for coupon emails, with an average of 17 percent for coupons redeemable online and 24 percent for coupons redeemable in-store.

"For marketers, the data behind our coupon study further validates how email coupons can and should be used to engage customers and drive traffic and sales to other channels," said Matt Seeley, president of Experian Marketing Services‘ .

 "Understanding the purchase drivers and triggers along with the channel preferences of unique customers is an essential element in building loyalty and engagement. Today’s consumers are multi-channel and marketers that acknowledge this will see greater return on their marketing spend."

Other highlights from the study include:

Two-thirds of American households use coupons, with the vast majority of them (87 percent) used to save money and 30 percent used to try a new product or service.

Eighty percent of online coupon mailings garnered higher transaction-to-click rates and transaction rates than the non-coupon campaigns. Of this group, 78 percent also had higher revenue per email.

More households are now using coupons at restaurants/fast food chains. Compared to 2006, there are now 9 percent more households redeeming coupons at restaurants.

Related Articles:

>10 Reasons Social Media Isn’t Replacing Email

>Holiday Shoppers Want Deals Even More Than They Did Last Year

>Majority Of Consumers Want To Interact With Brands Online

The study identifies engagement according to six factors that respondents associates with media. They are "inspirational," "trustworthy," "life enhancing," "social interaction," "personal timeout," and ad receptivity.

John Fetto, product manager for Experian Research Services, said that the data suggests that TV ads online are especially effective at engaging consumers. "Web sites that are extensions of properties that exist in other media channels have a great potential to funnel audiences that are highly engaged in the first place," he said.

Women and younger consumers have higher levels of engagement online than men and older users. The differences were small. On a 100 to 500 point scoring system, women on average were a bit more receptive to online ads than men on average, at 236 to 228, respectively.

People between the ages of 35 and 54 rated the Internet as being about as trustworthy a source of information as did 18 to 34-year-olds. The study also found that people are more receptive to ads on sites they visit frequently. Those who visited sites two to six times per week are more likely to be responsive to ads than those who visit less often.

The study was based on 74,996 interviews with U.S. adults and was conducted online and over the telephone between October 2006 and September 2007.

EU Challenges Google On Data Retention

The Article 29 Working Group advises the European Union on data protection issues. They are not happy with the length of time Google plans to retain search information in their databases.

The Financial Times said Google’s desire to keep that data for as long as 24 months may run counter to privacy laws in the EU. It’s a lot shorter than the indefinite time Google has kept search data prior to their policy change.

Information on what people search for could be used to construct a pretty accurate profile of an individual. The potential for an epic scale invasion of privacy exists, should a government or a malicious party manage to grab that information.

It is unlikely an external attack would be able to breach Google’s security, as the company prizes that information even more than the people who contribute it. Government intervention is another matter, and Google has already fought one battle with the Justice Department over its try at grabbing a huge amount of that data.

Google’s global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer pointed out to the Times that Yahoo and Microsoft have not publicly announced any limits to their search data retention. Fleischer previously wrote on Google’s official blog that “since these laws do not yet exist, and are only now being proposed and debated, it is too early to know the final retention time periods, the jurisdictional impact, and the scope of applicability.”

The competitive reports include up-to-date information on:

• The relative market share of their brand within [an] industry online
• The sources of traffic among competitors’ sites
• The percentage of traffic from affiliate partners
• The brands and products that are top of mind among consumers
• Demographic data and Lifestyle segmentation data

Last week, Hitwise announced the “Hitwise to Go” product to deliver online consumer usage information for journalists and academics via RSS. These announcements come less than a month after Hitwise was acquired by Experian for their Marketing Solutions business.

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