Kbb.com Ranked Top Automotive Web Site for Car Shoppers

More car shoppers choose Kelley Blue Book's kbb.com than any other automotive Web site when researching and purchasing a vehicle, according to Keynote Systems'® recent Customer Experience (CE) Rankings for the Third Party Automotive Industry study. Keynote's findings indicate that consumers have used kbb.com more in the past than other third-party automotive Web sites -- 66 percent of those surveyed had used kbb.com prior to the study -- and car shoppers named kbb.com as the resource they are most likely to use in the future when researching and purchasing their next vehicle.

"Kelley Blue Book's 79-year history and brand recognition is what initially gets people to visit kbb.com," said Stephen Henson, executive vice president of sales, marketing and products at Kelley Blue Book. "But our first-place rankings in nearly 30 of Keynote's categories is proof that we are delivering on our promise of being 'the trusted resource.'"

In addition, kbb.com ranked No. 1 in overall customer experience and satisfaction among third-party automotive Web sites. Vehicle shoppers rated kbb.com best for providing helpful reviews and ratings, detailed vehicle and pricing information and tools allowing consumers to find desired vehicles. Study participants also said that kbb.com is the most helpful automotive site for obtaining dealer quotes and even buying a car. The vast amount of helpful information combined with an organized, easy-to-use Web site gave kbb.com the highest consumer retention rate in the study.

Kbb.com garnered top rankings on most metrics throughout the Keynote study due to the Kelley Blue Book's longstanding brand impact on car buyers for nearly 80 years. Among the sites reviewed in the Keynote study, no other Internet destination was considered to be more of an industry leader, more trusted, more reliable or higher quality than kbb.com. With more than seven million unique visitors and upwards of 35 million pricing reports generated per month, kbb.com remains the favorite site among consumers seeking unbiased automotive information.

Keynote Systems' national study, conducted in December 2004, interviewed 2,000 qualified panelists (planning to purchase a new or used vehicle within the next 12 months) and evaluated 10 third-party automotive Web sites: Autobytel.com, Automotive.com, AutoTrader.com, cars.com, CarsDirect, Edmunds.com, kbb.com, MSN Autos, Vehix.com and Yahoo! Autos.

About Keynote

Founded in 1995, Keynote Systems, The Internet Performance Authority®, is the worldwide leader in e-business performance management services. Over 2,100 corporate customers and over 16,000 individual subscribers rely on Keynote's growing range of measurement and monitoring, service level and customer experience management services to improve e-business performance by reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction and increasing profitability. Keynote is viewed as The Internet Performance Authority® due to the company's global infrastructure of over 1,600 measurement computers in more than 50 cities worldwide that capture and store on a daily basis over 60 million Internet performance measurements, frequent media citations quoting Keynote's Web performance data and analysis, the company's market-leading Web performance indices for vertical markets and leading customer research that provides critical business insight into online customer experiences, industry trends and competitive Web strategies. 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.

About Kelley Blue Book (kbb.com)

Kelley Blue Book's kbb.com is America's most used and trusted vehicle pricing, values and information resource. The top-rated Web site provides the most up-to-date pricing and values for thousands of new and used vehicles, including the Blue Book® New Car Value, which reveals what people actually are paying for new cars. Since 1926, car buyers and sellers have relied upon Kelley Blue Book for authoritative and unbiased information to make well- informed automotive decisions. The company also reports vehicle prices and values via products and services, including the famous Blue Book® Official Guide and software products. Car buyers have rated kbb.com No. 1 in overall customer satisfaction and experience, according to a survey by Keynote Systems. Kbb.com also has been named the No. 1 automotive information site by Nielsen//NetRatings and J.D. Power and Associates seven years in a row. No other medium reaches more in-market vehicle shoppers than kbb.com; one in every four American car buyers complete their research on kbb.com.

SOURCE: Kelley Blue Book

CONTACT: Robyn Eckard, +1-949-268-3049, reckard@kbb.com, or Joanna
McNally, +1-949-268-3079, jmcnally@kbb.com, both of Kelley Blue Book

Web site: http://www.keynote.com/

Web site: http://www.kbb.com/