Figures recomputed from the live index on . Data window: July 2025 – June 2026.
What share of personal injury search is branded versus unbranded?
Branded searches make up 45.6% of all personal injury search volume BrandTerritory measures. A branded search is someone typing a specific firm's name; an unbranded search is a generic phrase like "car accident lawyer near me." Across 118 measured markets that split is 381,470 branded searches against 455,550 unbranded ones per month. In the average individual market the branded share is lower, at 35.2% — the overall figure is higher because the largest markets skew more heavily branded than small ones. Search volumes are Google Keyword Planner bands, not exact counts.
How concentrated is branded demand in a typical personal injury market?
In the average measured market, a single firm holds 48.6% of all branded personal injury search. In 42 of 118 markets the leading firm holds more than half of it outright. Branded demand is not distributed evenly across the firms competing in a market — it concentrates, and in most markets it has already concentrated around one name. Search volumes are Google Keyword Planner bands, not exact counts.
How many law firms have measurable branded demand in one market?
An average of 7.4 firms per market register measurable branded search demand. In 18 of the 118 measured markets, exactly one firm does. Many firms that advertise heavily in a market generate no measurable volume of searches for their own name, because paid and unbranded traffic does not by itself create branded demand. A firm absent from the index has not been measured; that is not the same as having no demand.
When is personal injury search demand highest during the year?
Unbranded personal injury search peaks in December and bottoms out in February. On an index where 100 is the annual average, December runs at 116 and February at 86.4 — roughly a 34% swing between the strongest and weakest months. This is measured on generic, unbranded demand only, across 10 years of history. Treat it as directional: the index rests on 50 monthly observations, a small sample relative to the rest of the data on this site.
How much does branded demand vary between markets?
The largest measured market carries 28,520 branded personal injury searches a month; the smallest carries 30. That is roughly a 951-fold spread between the top and bottom of the index. Market size and market concentration are separate questions — a small market can be more contested than a large one, and a large one can be effectively owned by a single firm. Search volumes are Google Keyword Planner bands, not exact counts.
What is branded search demand, and why does it matter for a law firm?
Branded search demand is the monthly volume of people searching for a firm by name. It is the clearest available proxy for whether a market already knows a firm exists. Unbranded searches are contested every month through advertising and rankings, and their cost rises with competition. Branded searches are not: someone typing a firm's name has already chosen who they want. As AI answer engines increasingly summarise results instead of listing ten links, the ranking positions that unbranded search depends on become less directly visible to the person asking — while a query naming a specific firm still resolves to that firm. BrandTerritory measures the branded half of that picture across 118 markets.
Where does BrandTerritory's data come from?
Search volumes come from Google's Keyword Planner, retrieved through the DataForSEO API. The index tracks 2,360 distinct brand terms across 635 personal injury firms in 118 markets and 46 states, with 76,308 monthly volume observations covering July 2025 – June 2026. Volumes are measured at metro scope and mapped to Nielsen DMA territories. Search volumes are Google Keyword Planner bands, not exact counts. They are directionally reliable for comparison between firms and markets, and should not be read as precise counts.
How is the Brand Demand Score calculated, and how often is the data updated?
The Brand Demand Score measures a firm's share of branded search demand within a defined market over a rolling window. The specific weighting is proprietary and not published. What is published is what goes into it: the brand terms attributed to each firm, the market each measurement is scoped to, and the monthly volume history behind it — all visible on the market and firm pages. Volume data is refreshed monthly; the aggregate figures on this page are recomputed from the live index every 24 hours. Current data window: July 2025 – June 2026.
Can a law firm pay to improve its position in the index?
No. Inclusion can be purchased; results cannot. A firm can pay to be added to the index or to commission a report about its own market. Neither changes the measured figures, the ranking, or the position of any firm. The underlying volumes come from Google, not from BrandTerritory, and a commissioned report reads the same data everyone else sees.
Who publishes BrandTerritory, and what is the conflict of interest?
BrandTerritory is published by Mass Tort Ad Agency, which sells marketing services to personal injury and plaintiff law firms — including firms measured in this index. That is a real conflict and you should discount it accordingly, then check the published method rather than taking the conclusions on trust. The author, Jacob Malherbe, is not an attorney; nothing on this site is legal advice, and no figure here asserts that any firm has violated any rule of professional conduct. Coverage is 118 measured markets and 635 firms — not a census of the U.S. personal injury bar. Believe a number is wrong? Email jacob@masstortadagency.com and we will re-run the measurement and publish the correction.
Reuse permitted with attribution and date. Cite as: “Questions & Answers — Personal Injury Brand Demand.” BrandTerritory, Mass Tort Ad Agency, retrieved 2026-08-06. Think a number is wrong? Email jacob@masstortadagency.com — we will re-run the measurement and publish the correction.