20% Local Intent Number Is 50% Too Low

Mike Blumenthal pointed me to this Wall Street Journal article this morning which mentions the oft-cited stat that 20% of all PC searches have Local Intent.  I just have a quick comment that I’ve made to several people in meetings recently but don’t think I’ve blogged about.

Even based on information revealed directly by the search engines, the overall number cited for Local Intent searches should be 30%.

Here’s why:

In my five minutes of searching, I couldn’t find a definitive stat as to the percentage of mobile searches.  But does anyone doubt that this will be anything less than 20% by the end of the year?  That’s certainly what most projections were back in 2010.  Google itself states that mobile search has quadrupled since then.  And multiple studies peg mobile paid traffic around 25%, suggesting that if anything, that 20% number will be too low by December.

Google says 40% of mobile searches have Local Intent; Microsoft cites 53%.  Let’s split the difference and say 46.5%.

Let me see if I remember my 8th-grade algebra lesson:

.20(x) + .465(.20(x)) = .293(x), or 29.3%.