Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Search Penetration Index (SPI): 02.14.04
Top for February 14, 2004: Used Cars
Search Results: We searched 164,440 records over 32 minutes, 22 seconds, using 3,290 search phrases to obtain 16,663 unique domains and 49,241 unique URLs for this report.
Sample Keywords: low, guide, car, used car, package, pricing, auto, pre-owned, dealer, automobile (to see full list, purchase the complete SPI report by writing us at WhatRank.com).
Domains: Top Ten
URLs: Top Ten
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EDMUNDS PROVES IT'S NO EDSEL ON THE WEB
Who's Winning the Web? The battle for exposure to the car-seeking eyeballs of web-users is working out in favor of car information purveyor Edmunds.com, which has for a number of years sought to be the most highly-visible site in this space. The Santa Monica, California company, privately held, continues to innovate to both car consumers, and now auto analysts and other businesses seeking auto-consumer info.
Not to be outdone, Consumer Guide took the number two spot; the purveyor of newstand and convenience store-sold guides to a vast array of vehicles appears to have no intention of yielding the online space in this category. Clever optimization, and a link to some car loan calculators placed web-application company Android Technologies in the Top 5.
But high up too was Intellichoice, which may not have the newstand or water-cooler mindshare that Edmunds and Consumer Guides have, but is widely respected. Owned by multimedia publishing giant Primedia, the Silicon Valley-based website also publishes bookstore versions of its auto guides.
These folks all beat out nadaguides.com, put out by the National Auto Dealers Association, which also publishes the ubiquitous mini-books on auto prices, competing with the Kelly Blue Book and others for the used-auto values space.
Luckily, Kelly wasn't too far behind (#9) with their kbb.com site. We found autobytel.com in the Top 20 (#18), along with motortrend.com (#12), the car magazine.
The major portals and retailers/auctioneers are certainly making a concerted play for visibility, but their results are pretty uneven: to wit, both Amazon and Yahoo had URLs in the Top 10, but eBay's highest score came from their ebaymotors.com site at (#29).
Admittedly, the latter site is targeting actual interactive buyers, while many of the other sites are targeting those at the research-and-compare phase of their purchase. One thing's for sure: car buyers have more than enough sites to keep them busy as they search for their dream vehicle, or just some wheels with which to motor around town.
Interestingly, we didn't see any car brands pop up in the top sites, but we didn't use any specific brands in our search, as we would have had to use them all -- and that's a lot of cars!
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*The SPI measures who's winning the web via a proprietary algorithm that calculates websites' exposure to particular topics via keywords. The algorithm weights various factors to come up with a score, which is used to rank the sites in the index. To see the complete index for this topic, for more information about SPI, or to purchase a customized SPI for your niche or business, please write us at WhatRank.com.
Search Penetration Index, SPI and "Who's Winning the Web" are trademarks of WR Media, Somerville, MA. Copyright 2004. All Rights Reserved. Other marks, brands and websites mentioned in this column and the SPI report are not affiliated with WR Media and are the property of their respective owners.
Top for February 14, 2004: Used Cars
Search Results: We searched 164,440 records over 32 minutes, 22 seconds, using 3,290 search phrases to obtain 16,663 unique domains and 49,241 unique URLs for this report.
Sample Keywords: low, guide, car, used car, package, pricing, auto, pre-owned, dealer, automobile (to see full list, purchase the complete SPI report by writing us at WhatRank.com).
Domains: Top Ten
| 1. | www.edmunds.com | 89.924 |
| 2. | auto.consumerguide.com | 43.2 |
| 3. | www.androidtechnologies.com | 41.761 |
| 4. | www.intellichoice.com | 39.807 |
| 5. | www.citimall.com | 33.29 |
| 6. | www.nadaguides.com | 32.238 |
| 7. | www.epinions.com | 30.799 |
| 8. | www.amazon.com | 24.318 |
| 9. | www.kbb.com | 24.309 |
| 10. | autos.yahoo.com | 24.056 |
URLs: Top Ten
| 1. | www.edmunds.com/ | 21.166 |
| 2. | www.kbb.com/ | 20.915 |
| 3. | www.nadaguides.com/ | 13.839 |
| 4. | www.nada.com/ | 11.171 |
| 5. | www.edmunds.com/used/ | 8.019 |
| 6. | autos.yahoo.com/ | 7.918 |
| 7. | www.kiplinger.com/basics/archives/2002/02/wp_usedcar.html | 6.933 |
| 8. | auto.consumerguide.com/auto/new/index.cfm/act/class/classid/13 | 6.275 |
| 9. | www.nadaguides.com/Values/ValueCategory.asp?wSec=2&wPg=1202 | 5.824 |
| 10. | www.womanmotorist.com/ | 4.945 |
__________________________________________________
EDMUNDS PROVES IT'S NO EDSEL ON THE WEB
Who's Winning the Web? The battle for exposure to the car-seeking eyeballs of web-users is working out in favor of car information purveyor Edmunds.com, which has for a number of years sought to be the most highly-visible site in this space. The Santa Monica, California company, privately held, continues to innovate to both car consumers, and now auto analysts and other businesses seeking auto-consumer info.
Not to be outdone, Consumer Guide took the number two spot; the purveyor of newstand and convenience store-sold guides to a vast array of vehicles appears to have no intention of yielding the online space in this category. Clever optimization, and a link to some car loan calculators placed web-application company Android Technologies in the Top 5.
But high up too was Intellichoice, which may not have the newstand or water-cooler mindshare that Edmunds and Consumer Guides have, but is widely respected. Owned by multimedia publishing giant Primedia, the Silicon Valley-based website also publishes bookstore versions of its auto guides.
These folks all beat out nadaguides.com, put out by the National Auto Dealers Association, which also publishes the ubiquitous mini-books on auto prices, competing with the Kelly Blue Book and others for the used-auto values space.
Luckily, Kelly wasn't too far behind (#9) with their kbb.com site. We found autobytel.com in the Top 20 (#18), along with motortrend.com (#12), the car magazine.
The major portals and retailers/auctioneers are certainly making a concerted play for visibility, but their results are pretty uneven: to wit, both Amazon and Yahoo had URLs in the Top 10, but eBay's highest score came from their ebaymotors.com site at (#29).
Admittedly, the latter site is targeting actual interactive buyers, while many of the other sites are targeting those at the research-and-compare phase of their purchase. One thing's for sure: car buyers have more than enough sites to keep them busy as they search for their dream vehicle, or just some wheels with which to motor around town.
Interestingly, we didn't see any car brands pop up in the top sites, but we didn't use any specific brands in our search, as we would have had to use them all -- and that's a lot of cars!
__________________________________________________
*The SPI measures who's winning the web via a proprietary algorithm that calculates websites' exposure to particular topics via keywords. The algorithm weights various factors to come up with a score, which is used to rank the sites in the index. To see the complete index for this topic, for more information about SPI, or to purchase a customized SPI for your niche or business, please write us at WhatRank.com.
Search Penetration Index, SPI and "Who's Winning the Web" are trademarks of WR Media, Somerville, MA. Copyright 2004. All Rights Reserved. Other marks, brands and websites mentioned in this column and the SPI report are not affiliated with WR Media and are the property of their respective owners.
