What are the top UK travel sites in Google when searching for hotels?

Wonderfully detailed statistics from Greenlight Search outlining the most effective travel sites in the UK when it comes to visibility in search for hotels.

Tnooz has got a first look at how efficient (or not) travel sites are with their SEO when attempting to rank highly in Google for a string of hotel-related keywords, with some interesting results.

The top ten in March 2010, for example, does not see TripAdvisor in the number one position overall for the 1,300 hotel keywords included in the study, perhaps challenging the often spoken mantra in the sector that it is the Master of SEO.

[Figure in brackets is the percentage of users reached within the overall volume of 12.2 million searches]

LateRooms (68%)
Lastminute.com (51%)
TripAdvisor (50%)
Booking.com (41%)
PremierInn (39%)
TravelSupermarket (36%)
Hilton (36%)
Expedia (32%)
Travelodge (24%)
Superbreak (20%)

The top ten sites for main hotel keywords, such as "hotels", "hotel", "bed and breakfast", "B&B", "cheap hotels", "cheap hotel" and "motel", sees a slight shift, but with LateRooms retaining its top spot.

Laterooms (84%)
Booking.com (71%)
Lastminute.com (69%)
PremierInn (68%)
Hilton (63%)
TravelSupermarket (56%)
TripAdvisor (47%)
Travelodge (42%)
Superbreak (23%)
Direct-Hotels (18%)

Where TripAdvisor does perform well is in searches for destination-specific keywords. The site tops both short haul and long haul charts (for example, "Rome hotels" or "Bangkok hotels") ahead of Expedia and Booking.com.

The report for March 2010 also includes visibility in paid-for advertising results.

The chart is calculated by how often a site's adspot was present in Google search results, for which ad position it bid, and associated search volume they bid on.