Google Still King of Search -- Clear Favorite Across All Search
Categories, New Keynote Study Reports

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 19, 2006--Keynote Systems
(Nasdaq:KEYN):


-- Yahoo!, a Strong Second, Most Competitive with Google in Local &
Image Search

-- Ask Jeeves Jumps in Brand Perceptions When Consumers Try its Site
and Improves in Search Quality

-- MSN Improving in General Search Quality & Presentation of Sponsored Results

-- AOL's Strength Lies with its Subscriber Base

-- Fourth Wave of Keynote Study Offers In Depth Look at Key Success Factors

New competitive intelligence from Keynote Systems (Nasdaq:KEYN), The
Internet Performance Authority(R), documents the continued leadership
and improvement of Google and Yahoo! in the search engine industry as
search companies continue to further expand their services in areas
such as image and local search.

The Keynote Customer Experience Rankings for Search Engine Sites is
based on an examination of 2,000 consumers as they searched and
performed relevant tasks on the AOL Search (NYSE:TWX), Ask Jeeves
(Nasdaq:IACI), Google (Nasdaq:GOOG), MSN Search (Nasdaq:MSFT), and
Yahoo! Search (Nasdaq:YHOO) sites. Keynote also performed the first
ever service level study examining the responsiveness and reliability
of the leading search engine sites. This is Keynote's second year
studying the search engine industry and the first to examine the
online consumer experience with image and news searches. The study was
conducted over a two-week period in late October 2005.

"Google is still king of the Web when it comes to search, and wins
consumers' praise in relatively new search categories, such as image
search, and continues to perform well in the more established search
categories," said Dr. Bonny Brown, director of research and public
services for Keynote. "Despite active competitive maneuverings,
Google's challengers have yet to break the leader's grip on consumers'
affections, although each of the search engines has their own loyal
following. The clear appeal of Google's homepage, as well as its
presentation of sponsored ads and the overall usefulness of its ads
continue to be important factors in Google's continuing success."

For the fourth consecutive wave of the Keynote study, Google topped
the Keynote Customer Experience Rankings, an aggregate ranking of
leading search engines based on an analysis of 250+ metrics measured
during the study. In fact, Google outperformed its competitors in all
13 business success drivers measured in the study, including those for
general search quality, local search quality and image search quality.

Yahoo! Search ranked second in the study, Ask Jeeves third, MSN fourth
and AOL's public site ranked fifth. The study ranked the public sites
of each search engine in 13 different categories based on their
performance with the general Internet population. The AOL Search
subscriber site, the site dedicated to its subscribers, was also
tested, and would have ranked third in these rankings. In fact, all
search sites perform better with their frequent or regular users.
However, only AOL has a separate site for those regular users, thus
for comparison purposes only the AOL public site was ranked.


Keynote Customer Experience Rankings
Search Engines
-----------------------------------------------
1 Google
-----------------------------------------------
2 Yahoo! Search
-----------------------------------------------
3 Ask Jeeves (AOL Search subscriber site(a))
-----------------------------------------------
4 MSN Search
-----------------------------------------------
5 AOL Search public site
-----------------------------------------------
(a) The AOL Search subscriber site ranked third
when compared to other public sites in the study.


Yahoo! demonstrated its staying power in the latest study, holding its
ground with Google, and posting a clear lead over its other
competitors. Yahoo! remains in second place across 12 customer
experience drivers measured by Keynote, including those for general
and local search quality. However, Yahoo! performs most competitively
with Google in the local and image search categories. When searching
for local services or information, 82% of Yahoo! users reported task
success, as compared to 83% of Google users, and 66% of Yahoo! users
were very satisfied with their search as compared to 71% of Google
users.

"Google continues its dominance, but Yahoo! is more competitive in the
newer categories such as local and image search," said Brown. "As
these new categories gain in popularity and usage, this may offer an
opportunity for Yahoo! to close the gap with Google."

Industry experts expect such new areas of search to help drive even
greater usage of search sites in the future. In the last few years all
five of the major sites have introduced "local" and "image" search
tabs on the main navigation bars of their sites.

Image search appears to have caught on quite quickly with consumers,
with 63% of Yahoo! users and 56% of Google users turning to the image
search areas of those sites when searching for an image. There is less
awareness and usage of the local search tabs, with just 28% of Google
users and 39% of Yahoo! users in the study turning to the local search
function when conducting a local search although there is great
appreciation for Google's integrated local search results. There is
significantly less consumer demand for the special product search
functionality on all leading sites.

General search quality still has the greatest impact on the user
experience for search engines. Ask Jeeves showed the largest increase
in general search quality over the last year, while MSN had the
largest improvement in this area in the past six months.

As reported in previous Keynote studies, despite the difference in
perceived quality of search results, actual search quality differs
little among the primary search engines. The latest Keynote study
reconfirms those previous findings, and again demonstrates that Google
and Yahoo! generate much of their satisfaction from additional factors
aside from actual search quality.

The difference between the sites in terms of customer experience and
customer satisfaction among their regular or primary users is
relatively small as compared to the wide differences between the
competitors among new users or infrequent users who do not have a
primary search engine. For instance, among new and infrequent search
engine users, 82% of those sent to search on Google were "very
satisfied" with their experience, as compared to 53% "very satisfied"
with their experience on MSN. However, among their regular or primary
users, Google received a 92% satisfaction rate and MSN receives an 84%
satisfaction rate.

A similar effect is seen with AOL. For example, the AOL in-client
search site used by AOL subscribers performed much better in terms of
user satisfaction than did the public site.

Once users gain familiarity with a search site, their satisfaction and
perceptions of that site tend to improve. All sites in the study saw
improvements in their brand perceptions with new or infrequent users
once those users had conducted several searches on their site. Ask
Jeeves received the greatest jump in brand perceptions once new or
infrequent users had searched on their site.

Despite the variances based on frequency of use, Google is the clear
leader in Internet search and Yahoo! the clear number two search site
across all types of users, and among the general Internet population.

Ask Jeeves showed improvement in the perceptions of its general search
results by reducing the number of sponsored results at the top of the
page. MSN's strongest performance was in the user perception of its
search results as being up to date, and the presentation of its
sponsored results. In fact, MSN was the only site to show improvement
in the perception of its results being up to date. AOL's strongest
performance was in the news search and product search categories, as
well as in the special features category, and was driven primarily by
the success of its subscriber search site.

The Keynote Customer Experience Rankings for Search Engine Sites
provides in-depth competitive analysis of the search engine industry
and contains hundreds of additional data points, as well as a detailed
analysis of study findings. For an abstract reviewing the customer
experience rankings study:
http://keynote.com/downloads/cem/Keynote_SearchCE.pdf

Customer Experience Management

Keynote's customer experience management (CEM) services offer both
competitive intelligence studies and custom engagement services
examining consumer attitudes and behavior on the Web. To learn more
about Keynote's CEM solutions, visit:
http://www.keynote.com/solutions/customer_experience_management.html

For more information about Keynote's Competitive Intelligence
offerings view:
http://www.keynote.com/solutions/competitive_intelligence_tpl.html

Service Level Management

Keynote's service level management (SLM) solutions provide enterprises
with the tools to align IT and e-business goals. To learn more about
Keynote's SLM solutions, visit:
http://www.keynote.com/solutions/service_level_management.html.

About Keynote

Founded in 1995, Keynote Systems (Nasdaq "KEYN") is the worldwide
leader in services that improve online business performance and
communications technologies. Keynote helps approximately 2,300
corporate customers and 13,000 individual subscribers become "the best
of the best" online. The business premise supporting Keynote's mission
is: "Online businesses can't manage what they don't measure." As an
independent and trusted third-party, Keynote provides IT and marketing
executives with unbiased benchmarking data, competitive analysis and
operational metrics from the customer perspective. This data measures
service levels and customer experience of Web sites, broadband
services and mobile communications.

Known as The Internet Performance Authority(R), Keynote manages a
market-leading infrastructure of 1,600+ measurement computers and
mobile devices in over 114 locations and 66+ metropolitan areas
worldwide that assess service levels and a panel of over 160,000
consumers who participate in interactive Web site tests that assess
user experience. These online user experience tests capture customer
attitude and behavior to answer the critical "why" behind the "what."
Keynote's geographically distributed measurement services, on-site
monitoring appliances, competitive intelligence and custom studies
ensure that its customers outpace their competitors in online service
levels and overall user experience.

Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California and
can be reached at www.keynote.com or by phone in the U.S. at
650-403-2400.

Keynote, The Internet Performance Authority and Perspective are
registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. Other trademarks are
the property of their respective owners. (C) 2006 Keynote Systems,
Inc.