Heather Hopkins of Hitwise Intelligence has posted the latest traffic numbers for MapQuest and Google Maps. At first look, the above line graph makes it clear that Google Maps is on the up-and-up, while MapQuest seems to be dying a slow, painful death. But the actual numbers got me thinking. Consider this:
- 61% of Google Maps visits came from shortcuts on search pages rather than a specific Google Maps search in the past four weeks
- MapQuest received 62% of its visits over the past four weeks from 8 brand-specific search terms such as “mapquest” and “mapquest driving directions”
- 4.2% of Google Maps traffic came from 2 brand-specific search terms, the only two in the top 10 search result leading to visits
So while it’s obvious Google will eventually overtake MapQuest as a result of its search dominance, who really has the better brand?
