Australian search engine flies up the rankings

Ansearch was launched in November 2004 and claims to deliver results based on the behaviour of the user and the popularity of a search key word.

According to Hitwise, an online competitive intelligence company, Ansearch's popularity surged by 2000 percent shortly after its launch and its market share seems to have continued increasing after the Christmas holidays.

Hitwise said that Ansearch debuted as the 120th most popular Australian search engine and by the end of December had shot up to 37th most popular. According to weekly data provided by Hitwise, Ansearch is now the 27th most popular Australian site in its category.

Another important factor is the number of people that continue to use the search engine. Hitwise said its weekly data indicates that almost 20 percent of Ansearch users have bookmarked the site.

Hitwise said its statistics show that more than 60 percent of Australian Internet users use local search engines.