What is the Long Tail of Search? - The Other End of the Animal
(Page 2 of 4 )
Now let's look at a store that is truly online, where all the goods are digital (or at least don't take up any significant physical space for which you have to pay a fee). If it costs the same to stock one movie as it does to stock thousands of different movies, and you make your money from renting movies, which will you do? Ask Netflix. The company proudly boasts of carrying 60,000 titles, "five times the selection of a typical video store," according to its web site.
If you wonder how a company can make money carrying such a huge selection, you're still thinking in brick-and-mortar terms. Here's a question that Anderson mentioned in his article that might take your mind out of the store. It's actually asked by Robbie Vann-Adib, who makes his money with a digital jukebox player that offers 150,000 selections. "What percentage of the top 10,000 titles in any online media store (Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, or any other) will rent or sell at least once a month?"
Most people asked that question will answer 20 percent, based on the old 80-20 rule. Known as Pareto's principle, it was devised in 1906, and seems to apply everywhere: 20 percent of your wardrobe gets worn 80 percent of the time; 20 percent of Hollywood movies become hits; and so on. But, as Anderson points out, that's just for hits, not sales of any sort.
The correct answer to the question is that 99 percent of the top 10,000 titles will rent or sell at least once a month. It's not just the hits, but the "misses" that make the money. After all, there are a lot more of them! Anderson uses books to illustrate another example. The average Barnes & Noble carries around 130,000 titles. But more than half of the books that Amazon sells are not within its top 130,000 titles. Anderson asks us to "Consider the implication: If the Amazon statistics are any guide, the market for books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is larger than the market for those that are."
It is that market - the people who are looking for something very obscure, or very specific, that just aren't served by the "mass market" - that is meant by the long tail. If you think about Anderson's implication, you can see how people might make money off of it. But what does this mean for SEO, SEM, and your web site?
Next: Long Tail Businesses >>
More Search Optimization Articles
More By Terri Wells
