Hitwise Launches Search Intelligence V3.1

A suite of new competitive intelligence tools to help marketers uncover "gaps' in their search campaigns, to realize real revenue opportunities March 9, 2006 - Auckland - Hitwise (www.hitwise.co.nz), the leading online competitive intelligence service today announced the launch of Hitwise Search Intelligence V3.1, which includes a range of new search term analysis features to enhance its existing Search Intelligence tool. The key new features in this release make it easier for search marketers to maximize their search campaigns by uncovering new terms that have proven to drive traffic to specific competitors.

Because Hitwise monitors the online usage and search behaviour of more than 25 million Internet users every day and has competitive insights on over 500,000 websites, only Hitwise can provide comprehensive tools for marketers looking to gain a competitive edge in their search marketing programs.

A summary of the new tools available within the Hitwise Competitive Intelligence Service is as follows:

Search Term Gap Analysis: This groundbreaking new tool enables clients to quickly run analyses of the "gaps' between their search term list and those of competitors and their industry. New Hitwise Gap Reports can be run on proprietary search term portfolio lists, websites, industries and specific search terms. For example:

Your Search Term Portfolio List vs. Your Industry: By running a gap analysis between your own search term list against terms that have been successful in driving traffic to your industry, you can instantly see which terms you should potentially include in your search campaign.

A Website vs. a Search Term and its Variations: By running a gap analysis between a website and a search term, you can instantly see which search term variations are driving traffic to other websites, and not the specified website.

Highly Competitive Terms: After running any Hitwise Gap Analysis Report, Hitwise calculates which terms are deemed "highly competitive' amongst a website and their nominated competitors. As a result, Hitwise is able to instantly advise you as to which terms should definitely be included in your search term campaigns.

Search Terms to Custom Industry Categories: Within the Hitwise Competitive Intelligence Service, clients can create customized lists of websites to track. Now, the search terms that have successfully driven traffic to websites within a Custom Category can be monitored. This enables marketers to quickly analyse the most influential terms used by a group of competitors to identify missing terms worth including in their search marketing campaigns.

Search Terms to Sub-directories: With search terms to sub-directories, marketers can determine which terms have driven traffic to specific sections of websites, such as apple.com.au/ipod. This new feature is especially useful for determining "terms that work' for products.

"As more and more marketers use search engine optimisation and paid search campaigns to increase qualified traffic to their websites, having search term research that truly uncovers the "gems' is invaluable," said Gavin Appel, SVP Search Solutions at Hitwise. "These new, advanced search term analysis tools are another way Hitwise helps marketers understand the different ways their customers use search, enabling them to maximize their search marketing campaign ROI."

Using these new features in combination with the existing Hitwise search term, ranking, clickstream and online performance charting tools, businesses will not only have access to a complete overview of the best search terms to use, but will also be able to instantly measure the success and impact of their own search engine campaigns, and those of their competitors.

About Hitwise: Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites. Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as affiliate programs, search marketing, online advertising, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.

More information about Hitwise is available at sg.hitwise.com

For up to date analysis on online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com.

ENDS