Top Brands Account for Nine in Ten UK Internet Searches

An interesting ’short’ in this weeks hitwise.co.uk newsletter.

It appears “UK consumers are shunning generic Internet searches, such as ‘cheap flights’ or ‘broadband’, in favour of searching for popular brands. According to the Managing Your Brand Online report, the growth of branded search in the UK offers threats as well as opportunities for brand owners and marketers.

Eighty-eight percent of searches for the 2,000 most popular search terms in the UK during May 2008 were for branded terms, a figure that has increased from 65% in May 2005. The most searched-for term in the UK during May 2008 was ‘facebook’, which accounted for one in every 72 searches”

Is the longtail dissapearing? no, but this does give affiliates with brand related terms listed organically greater emphasis to increase rank for increased ROI. Is Brand + generic also becoming more important?