Dylan Hunter

From eMarketer, (they’ll lock it up soon, but out of fairness, here’s the link until they do):

Search Engines Help Small Businesses

MAY 22, 2007

Small businesses depend more on search engine traffic than larger firms, according to a study conducted by Hitwise in early 2007.

The firm measured the percentage of average monthly traffic companies in the Internet Retailer “Top 500 Guide” received from search engines in 2005 and 2006. Half of the businesses ranked from the 400th to the 500th positions depended on search engines for 50% or more of their total site traffic.

By comparison, none of the top 100 retailers generated more than 40% of their site traffic from search engines, and half had between 20.1% and 30% of their traffic come from search engines.

Web-only merchants averaged 64% their of monthly site traffic from search engines.

Chain retailers and consumer brand manufacturers averaged 28% and 27% of their site traffic from search engines, respectively.