Title: Analysis of Search Phrases and Keywords used by Guests to conduct online Searches and the Results The only Internet constant is: Change. As Trent Blizzard mentioned in his December Newsletter the world of the Internet continues to change and while Innkeepers should continue to promote and market their properties in many ways, Web based B&B Directories continue to be an important part of any successful Internet marketing formula. Research Premise: Analyzing server logs is useful in evaluating whether a B&B Directory is sending you traffic. However, logs obviously can’t provide information about sites that don’t link to your site. Analyzing your server logs is a good way to provide guidance for things you should stop paying for. They do not necessarily provide insight as to what to do next. Using server logs for increasing traffic is like navigating a car by only looking in the rearview mirror. It's not a good way to see what's in the road ahead. Server Logs a) only capture information about links that are already pointing to the Innkeepers homepage; b) do not provide any data on new possible links -what is the potential of a new link or advertising offer; c) are good for measuring ROI in past expenditures -limited guidance for new advertising expenditures In prior years’ market research we reported on how Innkeepers ranked Internet B&B Directories. The rankings were based on which Directory/Listing Services Innkeepers pay to be listed on. We thought that this year we should track this question a little differently by looking over the shoulders of Guests rather than Innkeepers. Hence the objective: To walk a mile in the shoes of B&B Guests to find out which Directories come up most frequently within web searches that they conduct. Research methodology: Profile of results of Searches using a matrix of 7 -10 most commonly used Search Phrases/Keywords Results were analyzed on 2 dimensions: a) who appeared within the top 20 listings on the search engines and b) the frequency with which they appeared. The first challenge of course is that Guests are not all alike and they use different search engines, search strategies, words and phrases to look for and to find a B&B. Which of course makes it challenging to determine a common way to compare the Directories. So we set up the following research/analysis criteria: Criteria 1: Which Search Engines? -Google -Yahoo -AOL -MSN -HotBot. Together these search engines have clearly become the places where most people start to look for something on the Internet. In fact according to WebsideStory Inc., a Web analytics company three-quarters of all on-line searches use Google or sites that use Google's search results. Criteria 2: We selected 3 geographically representative destination cities. Each destination city had to have at least 10 B&B's within them. Destinations selected: East Coast (Amelia Island FL); Western US (Albuquerque NM); Mid-Country (Hermann MO). Amelia Island FL has12 B&B's -Albuquerque NM has 40 B&B's -Hermann MO has 40 B&B's Criteria 3: Guests invariably use the destination (City/Region name and State) within their search phrase. However when faced with 1,730,000 and 4,930,000 listings (on Google) respectively when "Savannah Georgia" or "Savannah" are searched for most Guests now also typically combine or add some additional combination of terms to narrow down their searches. We selected a common set of search phrases used by Guests based on a) an analysis of server logs; b) Google metrics on "Clicks per day"; and c) word/phrase frequency counts on various search engines. These search phrases selected while not exhaustive are typical and representative: 1 -Bed and Breakfasts in (Name of City) (State Initials) 2 -(Name of City) (State Initials) Bed and Breakfast 3 -Find a B&B in (Name of City) (State Initials) -a conversational style of inquiry 4 -B&B in (Name of City) (State Initials) 5 -B&Bs in (Name of City) (State Initials) 6 -Romantic Getaways in (Name of City) (State Initials) Since Guests sometimes also use the name or part of the name of a B&B that they remembered or had heard about from their friends, we also constructed a search for a specific property within each of the destinations: 7 -(Name of a Specific Property) a B&B in (Name of City) (State Initials) Recognizing that Guests go to a destination to do something other than stay at a B&B we also searched using other common key words that are oriented more with things to do in a city rather than an accommodation search: 8 -Things to do in (Name of City) (State Initials) Criteria 4: For the purpose of the analysis we ignored Sponsored (pay-per-click) listings. This is not to say that Innkeepers/Directories should not pay for this type of presence. It's advertising and Innkeeper should continue to review this on a ROI basis and if there is a pay-back they should continue. Criteria 5: Directories that come up higher (top 20 listings) within the search engine listings obviously have an advantage over those that come up much lower in rank position. There is no empirical data however that suggests that coming up 2nd has a measurable advantage over the being listed 3rd within the first page of listings on the search engines. As a result we did not weight the results based on rank order. We did however limit the comparative analysis generally to those that appear within the first 2 pages of results: Google -2 pages deep – Directories that appeared in the top 20 listings -Yahoo -1 page deep -Directories that appeared in the top 20 listings -AOL -2 pages deep -Directories that appeared in the top 20 listings -MSN -2 pages deep -Directories that appeared in the top 30 listings -HotBot -2 pages deep -Directories that appeared in the top 20 listings Criteria 6: The data was analyzed in 2 ways: a) did page links to the directory show up in the phrase search within the top 20/30 listings using these searches phrases and b) the frequency with which they appeared. RESULTS: In total we analyzed 117 combination of phrase searches listed above. Here are the results for the list of Directories that you mentioned in your December Newsletter as having gained the most as a result of the recent changes in the Google rankings. a) % times appeared in the phrase searches b) frequency with which they appeared www.bbgetaways.com 82% 143% www.bbonline.com 50% 71% www.bedandbreakfast.com 51% 74% www.bnbfinder.com 29% 40% www.ibbp.com >5% >5% www.innrentals.com >5% >5% www.innsite.com >5% >5% www.lanierbb.com 38% 43% www.selectregistry.com >5% >5% www.theinnkeeper.com 17% 18% www.travelassist.com 32% 59% www.tripadvisor.com 21% 28% www.virtualcities.com 14% 17% Notes: Bedandbreakfast.com also appeared as insandouts.com – the counts were included bbgetaways.com – The listings on this directory also get listed on: find-a-room-at-theinnncom; things-to-do.com; and bedandbreakfastgetaways.com. These sites were not included in the “frequency with which they appeared” counts.