WebProNews

In 2004, 91% of the traffic generated for Galleon's 84 websites came from page one of search engine results. This was a third straight year for an increase in page one referrals since Mark Neal and his team at Galleon began tracking this type of data in 2002, when page one traffic steered 86% of searchers their way.

At the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago this morning, Mr. Neal pulled up a bar graph a bar graph on the screen to illustrate the difference between page one, two, and three. The bar for page one, compared to the bar for page two was looking at the Sears Tower next to a rural Baptist church. And worse for marketers who haven't yet made it to page one, traffic from page two and below are declining.

For organic traffic results, page two traffic is down 26%; for page three, down 43%; for page four, down 43% also. For pay-per-click, 95% of traffic is generated from page one. Page two generates just 3% of traffic.

Over 74% of Galleon's traffic came from the United States, leaving just under 11% originating in the United Kingdom.

"Germany had more English speaking searches than Ireland," said Neal.

But that was more of an aside than anything. The data is intended to stress (and it did so effectively, I think) the importance of landing your listing on page one. Neal concludes the trend toward a page one bias on the part of searches could be indicative of more experienced, less patient searchers.

There is an upside to this, however. It needn't be quite so competitive in the future as local and personalized search will make it easier to obtain those coveted top 10 positions.

Jason L. Miller is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.