Welcome to the eCig One e-cigarette industry report for October 2012. In this monthly feature, we present an overview of the current state of the e-cigarette industry in terms of Web and search traffic using trusted services such as Compete.com and Google. Listed in this report are the top ten e-cigarette companies by Web traffic, the top domains listed on Google for the most popular e-cigarette keywords and the events from the past month that may have influenced any changes. When we find significant changes, we research potential influencing factors such as search engine algorithm updates, link building campaigns and trending news items. We sampled data from 83 e-cigarette companies in all to compile this report.

If you represent an e-cigarette company and would like to submit a comment or announcement to be published in next month’s report, feel free to contact us.

E-Cigarette Company Web Traffic

E-Cigarette Company Web Traffic October 2012

Although the V2 Cigs website dropped slightly in traffic from 1.11 to 1.07 million visitors last month, V2’s new brand — Vapor Couture — rocketed up to the number two position and attracted 337,000 visitors of its own. Between those two brands and V2’s other new brand Vantage Vapor, V2 towered over the rest of the e-cigarette industry this month with an estimated 1.41 million total visitors. In all, the e-cigarette companies we tracked this month received approximately 1.99 million visitors, a 17.9 percent increase from last month. It should be noted that Vapor Couture, who we didn’t track last month, accounted for the majority of this increase. EverSmoke and Pure Cigs experienced steep declines in traffic, dropping from the number four and nine positions to numbers eight and 23 respectively.

Biggest Winners

Vapor Couture, backed by the massive promotional muscle of V2 Cigs, has become the number two e-cigarette brand in the world based on Web traffic in the few short months since its release. Industry research suggests that the majority of e-cigarette users are women, and the Vapor Couture brand aims to capitalize on that fact with its fashion-forward designs. So far, it would seem that V2’s experiment has been a runaway success.

Blu increased its Web traffic by 16 percent after months of stagnation, likely due at least in part to a new television commercial featuring actor Stephen Dorff.

Avid Vaper grew its traffic from 452 to 2,836 visitors, an increase of 627 percent. Although we found no news releases or new products that the industry as a whole would consider noteworthy, a search with SEO SpyGlass finds approximately 2,300 inbound links pointing to the Avid Vaper website. However, none of these links appear to include commercial terms in the anchor text and all appear to have been created by members of the vaping community.

Biggest Losers

EverSmoke dropped from 48,000 to under 21,000 visitors, while Pure Cigs dropped to 7,475 visitors after receiving about 72,000 just two months ago. Searches with SEO SpyGlass in previous months showed tens of thousands of links pointing to these websites using anchor text matching highly desired search terms, so it seems probable that a Penguin penalty could have resulted.

New Additions

Vapor Couture is the new brand from V2 Cigs targeting female smokers. As we menioned at the beginning of this article, Vapor Couture’s Web traffic has greatly increased in a very short timespan, making it the second most popular e-cigarette company in the world.

Vantage Vapor is V2’s third e-cigarette brand and is considered something of a budget product. The brand has just launched, so it remains to be seen whether it will catch on the way Vapor Couture has.

Seminole Unconquered is a new line of disposable e-cigarettes and e-cigars released by the Seminole Tribe of Florida in partnership with Safe Cig. Seminole’s disposable e-cigarette has the same “soft feel” that companies such as NJOY are now beginning to promote. However, the NJOY King appears to be behind schedule, while the Seminole e-cigarette is available to buy now. Look for a review of the Seminiole e-cigarette on my website next week.

E-Cigarette Search Engine Rankings

This section of the eCig One e-cigarette industry report lists the top ten domain names displayed on Google’s first results page for the four most popular electronic cigarette-related keywords.

You might notice a few newcomers with very long domain names on this chart. These appear to be relatively new e-cigarette affiliate websites, bumped to the top of Google’s rankings by massive targeted link building campaigns. SEO SpyGlass reports a combined total of about 45,000 inbound links pointing to them. Affiliate websites such as these often disappear quickly after being penalized by search engines for unnatural linking.

Electronic Cigarette

  1. wikipedia.org
  2. electroniccigaretteboutique.com
  3. blucigs.com
  4. victoryecigs.com
  5. fda.gov
  6. electroniccigarettemart.com
  7. electroniccigarettespage.com
  8. greensmoke.com
  9. cocktailnerd.com
  10. epuffer.com

E-Cigarette

  1. wikipedia.org
  2. victoryecigs.com
  3. totallywicked-eliquid.com
  4. e-cigarette-forum.com
  5. greensmoke.com
  6. blucigs.com
  7. epuffer.com
  8. v2cigs.com
  9. smokersutopia.com
  10. premiumecigarette.com

Electronic Cigarettes

  1. wikipedia.org
  2. fda.gov
  3. victoryecigs.com
  4. blucigs.com
  5. epuffer.com
  6. e-cigarette-forum.com
  7. v2cigs.com
  8. volcanoecigs.com
  9. greensmoke.com
  10. electroniccigaretteboutique.com

E-Liquid

  1. eliquidplanet.com
  2. americaneliquidstore.com
  3. totallywicked-eliquid.com
  4. v2cigs.com
  5. pinkspotvapors.com
  6. halocigs.com
  7. highbrowvapor.com
  8. amsterdameliquid.com
  9. eliquid.net
  10. kingpincigs.com

Companies Included in Report

eCig One sampled traffic data from 83 different e-cigarette companies to create this month’s e-cigarette industry report. Click “Display List” to view the full list and contact us to suggest a company to include in future reports.

Display List

AltSmoke, American Cigs, Amerismoke, Apollo, Aqua Vapor, Avid Vaper, Bloog, Blu, Boge, Bull Smoke, Cigarti, Cigavette, Cloud 9, Dekang, eCig Express, Electro, ELiquid Planet, E-Lites, Eluma, Envy, ePuffer, eSmoke, EverSmoke, Firebrand, Gamucci, GoodeJuice, GotVapes, Green Smoke, Halo, Innokin, Instead, Intellicig, Johnson Creek Smoke Juice, Joyetech, Liberro, Luci, Lucky Slicks, MadVapes, Metro, My Freedom Smokes, Nhaler, NicStick, NJOY, Nucig, Nyce Smoke, Pink Spot Vapors, Premium, PureSmoker, Red Dragon, Safe Cig, Seminole Unconquered, Skycig, Smoke 51, Smoke Frii, Smoke Revolution USA, Smokeless Delite, Smokeless Image, SmokeStik, SmokeTip, Smoking Everywhere, Smoktech, South Beach Smoke, SparkPlug for Smokers, Stog, The Magic Mist, Totally Wicked, V2, Vantage Vapor, Vapage, Vapor Alley, Vapor Couture, Vapor King, Vapor4Life, VaporNine, Vapor Station, Victory, Virgin Vapor, Volcano, WetFlame, White Cloud

Thanks to Flickr user NS Newsflash for contributing this article’s lead photo.

Jason Artman

About the Author: Jason Artman

Jason Artman founded eCig One after switching from smoking to vaping in 2010 and has been a professional writer and SEO consultant since 2007. His work has been featured on television and in leading publications, and it has been referenced in numerous peer-reviewed journals. Jason works with leading vape brands around the world to generate targeted web traffic and increase their revenue.