Everybody loves a good number! They tell you something real, something concrete. Numbers are not subject to weasel words or legal disclaimers like ‘Results not Typical’. Numbers are very Zen – they simply are. So today we’re celebrating them in an internet marketing context, looking at some statistics from the world of SEO and web marketing over January and February 2010.

Google gets two thirds of search traffic

66% of searches conducted globally during December 2009 were conducted on Google. This percentage also represents a big real-number increase, because 46% more searches were conducted worldwide in December 09 compared to December 08.

You may have heard stats indicating that Google has a much bigger share of search traffic than that – and we have as well. It is important to remember that these figures are usually US or Western-world based. For example, there are a huge number of Asian sites that are very popular, but barely known in the West.

Facebook grows US users and time spent

Facebook’s US audience grew to 109,710,000 odd during November 2009, according to stats released in January. The average user spent around 6 hours and ten minutes on the site in that month.

65 and over much more web savvy

The internet is traditionally seen as the domain of the young, but that has been steadily changing over the past few years. Statistics show that the number of internet users in the 65+ age bracket has increased by more than 55% between November 2004 and November 2009. The top destinations they are visiting are Google Search, Windows Media Player, Facebook, Youtube, Amazon, Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Search (in order of popularity)