In reviewing common banking, credit and insurance search terms today (August 2005) vs. two years ago (April 2003), there has been phenomenal growth in searchs on specialty loan terms, such as (number of searches on Overture each month):

home equity loan — up 21-fold from 82,000 searches to 1.7 million searches in August
home equity credit line — up more than 80-fold, from less than 15,000 to 1.2 million
auto loan — up 10-fold, from 100,000 to 1.1 million
student loan — up 12-fold, form 110,000 to 1.3 million
credit card cash back — up more than 50-fold, from less than 15,000 to 730,000
mortgage refinancing — up more than 38-fold, from less than 15,000 to 570,000
payday loan — up 7-fold, from 79,000 to 560,000

In comparison, some of the more generic terms have shown much smaller gains:

mortgage — doubled to 1.2 million from 640,000
debt consolidation — tripled to 700,000 from 250,000
mortgage calculator — up 10% to 630,000 from 560,000

Another big mover: online banking, up 16-fold, from 31,000 to 500,000

Click on the thumbnail above to see all 50 top search terms or download the Word file here: Download banking_search_terms.doc

You can use Overture’s keyword selection tool yourself at this link.

—JB