Where exactly is eBay.com again?

The terms “ebay,” “ebay.com” and “www.ebay.com” registered in the top 10 for number of shopping and classifieds Internet searches last month, according to the Retail Monthly Category Report from research firm Hitwise. The research is based on U.S. Internet usage for the month of February 2007.

The big question: Why?

“It’s funny that people still are searching in this manner,” says a Hitwise spokesman. “While it’s a good measure of brand equity, it’s amazing many Internet users still do things this way.”

Following are the shopping and classifieds search terms that garnered the greatest share of all search terms in the category last month:

• 1. ebay, 2.18%
• 2. craigslist, 0.79%
• 3. ebay.com, 0.43%
• 4. walmart, 0.38%
• 5. target, 0.27%
• 6. amazon, 0.27%
• 7. best buy, 0.25%
• 8. amazon.com, 0.24%
• 9. www.ebay.com, 0.21%
• 10. home depot, 0.20%

Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise, is speaking at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition, June 4-7 in San Jose, in a session entitled Getting Better Mileage From the Search Engines.

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