HITWISE UK SEARCH UPDATE

Google and Yahoo! Post Gains in UK Search Market

London, 14^th November 2006

New data from Hitwise UK, the leading provider of online competitive intelligence, reveal that Google and Yahoo! Search™s share of the search market is growing and driving up the share of referrals from search engines to retail websites.

78% of UK internet searches in the four weeks to 21^st October 2006 were powered by Google, up 9% year-on-year. Yahoo! took the #2 rank based on share of executed UK searches with 7.7% of the search market. Together Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com powered 96.6% of all UK internet searches, up 2% year-on-year.

Hitwise analysis reveals that the share of referrals from search engines has been increasing to key e-commerce categories, including Travel Agencies, Appliances & Electronics and Insurance. In the week to 21^st October 2006:

• Travel Agencies received 39% of upstream visits from search engines, up 7% in the past six months.

• The Appliances & Electronics category received 36% of upstream visits from Search Engines, up 9% in the past six months.

• The Business & Finance - Insurance category received 35% of upstream visits from Search Engines, up 14% in the past six months.

"Consumers are increasingly using search engines to navigate the web, increasing the importance of search engines as a source of referrals for retailers," commented Heather Hopkins, VP of Research for Hitwise UK. "Google and Yahoo! Search in particular are seeing strong growth in their share of the UK search market and their share of referrals to online retailers. Growth for these search engines seems to be organic, driven in part by toolbar usage but also growing familiarity with the Google and Yahoo! brands."

You Don't Need to Pay to Play - But Leading Retailers Engage in at Least Some Paid Search

Many leading UK websites receive little to no search traffic from paid listings, with MySpace, Bebo and the BBC all receiving less than 1% of their search traffic from paid listings. Hitwise analysis reveals that whilst there appears to be no indication that paid search is a defining factor for a top ranking based on share of internet visits, leading retailers tend to engage in at least some paid search activity.

There are top 10 players in the Travel Agencies, Appliances & Electronics and Insurance industries that receive a relatively small proportion of their search traffic from paid listings. Cheapflights.co.uk in particular stands out as a top 10 player with a larger proportion of its own traffic coming from search engines (54% in the week to 21^st October 2006) but a relatively low share (29% of its search traffic) from paid listings.

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,200 global clients with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise's patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search, and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into our easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement, and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise is a privately held company headquartered in New York City and operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

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

For media enquiries, please contact:

Jannie Cahill
jannie.cahill@hitwise.com

Tel: 020 7378 3619