9:41
kayak.com
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kayak.com

8 technologies
VerifiedGrowingVisit32.2M/mo$235M1.2K8 Tech25 Leads
Deep Dive

KAYAK: The Aggregator That Dominated Search

How KAYAK built a travel empire by aggregating the internet—and what its struggles reveal about the market

Before KAYAK, comparing flight prices meant opening 15 browser tabs. In 2004, they solved this by aggregating hundreds of travel sites into one search. It was a simple but revolutionary idea that made them the default search engine for travel—until the giants woke up.

32M+
monthly visits
$234.7M
annual revenue
51%
organic search traffic
787M
backlinks

"KAYAK didn't invent travel search—they made it effortless by doing the heavy lifting of aggregation themselves."

The Power of Direct Traffic

With 44% direct traffic (14.1M monthly users typing 'kayak.com' directly), KAYAK achieved what most travel sites dream of: brand dominance. This isn't just traffic—it's a moat. When users bypass Google and search directly, you've won the mindshare game. Compare this to their 51% organic search, and you see a brand that's become a destination, not just a search result.

The Google Elephant in the Room

Here's the brutal truth: 'google flights' is KAYAK's 4th top keyword with 14M monthly searches. Google is both their biggest competitor and their biggest traffic source. KAYAK's $234M revenue exists in Google's shadow—Google Flight Search launched in 2011, directly challenging KAYAK's core business. The fact that KAYAK still commands 32M monthly visits proves they've built something Google hasn't fully replicated: user loyalty.

KAYAK's tech stack reveals a company that's scaled but hasn't fundamentally reinvented itself. jQuery and Bootstrap suggest legacy code, while Tailwind and Vite indicate modern front-end work. The real story is in their data infrastructure—processing hundreds of travel sites simultaneously requires massive engineering investment. Yet their 2.1/5 Trustpilot rating (2,761 reviews) suggests a disconnect between search capability and actual booking experience.

  • Brand moat: 44% direct traffic is exceptional for a search aggregator
  • Revenue scale: $234M with 1,156 employees = ~$203K revenue per employee
  • SEO dominance: 787M backlinks is enterprise-level authority
  • Market position: Top 1,115 global rank despite Google's direct competition
No direct booking revenue model (still affiliate-based)
Mastered the search aggregation game
Trustpilot rating shows booking experience issues
Built a brand strong enough to compete with Google
Vulnerable to Google's continued feature expansion
Massive scale with profitable operations
No clear mobile-first innovation story
Proven playbook for travel search that others copied

The Aggregator That Won Before The Platform War

KAYAK proved that aggregation works, but in a world where Google owns search intent, their 44% direct traffic is the only real moat they have left.

What tech stack does Kayak use?

14 detected
Analytics & Marketing1
Web Standards1
Build Tools1
UI Libraries1
JavaScript Libraries1
Tracking & Analytics6
G
Google Analytics
G
Google Tag Manager
G
Google DoubleClick
G
Google AdSense
A
Amazon CloudFront
G
Google Static

How much traffic does Kayak get?

Traffic & Engagement

27.6M
Monthly Visits
-1.8%
4.0
Pages/Visit
7:18
Avg. Duration
43%
Bounce Rate
Monthly Traffic Trend-9%
30.2M
Oct 2025
Oct
28.1M
Nov 2025
Nov
27.6M
Dec 2025
Dec

Rankings

#1,748
Global Rank
#513
United States Rank
Airlines
Category

Backlinks & Authority

787.0M
Backlinks
87.2K
Ref. Domains
81
Authority Score
Low
Penalty Risk
Backlinks Trend+10%
718.3M
Jul 2025
Jul
777.7M
Aug 2025
Aug
750.2M
Sep 2025
Sep
784.7M
Oct 2025
Oct
799.6M
Nov 2025
Nov
787.0M
Dec 2025
Dec

Search Traffic

Organic
12.6M
Paid
743.0K

Top Organic Keywords

#1kayak
2,740,000 vol26.6%
#1kayak flights
301,000 vol2.9%
#3cheap flights
2,240,000 vol1.8%
#1kayak car rental
60,500 vol0.6%
#12google flights
20,400,000 vol0.4%

Where is Kayak's audience located?

🇺🇸United States77.1%
🇨🇦Canada6.2%
🇮🇱Israel1.1%
🇬🇧United Kingdom0.9%
🇪🇸Spain0.6%

Device Distribution

Desktop44.5%
Mobile55.5%

What keywords does Kayak rank for?

5 keywords
1kayak1.8M vol$0.55
2kayak flights136.1K vol$0.64
3car rental280.8K vol$2.03
4google flights14.1M vol$0.72
5kayak car rental35.6K vol$2.04

How is Kayak's SEO?

Open Graph Image

OG Image preview
og:image

https://content.r9cdn.net/rimg/provider-logos/common/socialmedia/kayak-logo.png?width=1200&height=630&crop=false

Meta Tags

title41 chars

Search Flights, Hotels & Car Hire | KAYAK

description146 chars

KAYAK searches hundreds of other travel sites at once to find the information you need to make the right decisions on flights, hotels & car hires.

languageEN-GB

H1 Tags

h1Search Flights, Hotels & Hire Cars

Schema Types

WebsiteOrganizationFAQPage

Who works at Kayak?

Loading leads...

What do customers think of Kayak?

KAYAK

KAYAK

2.1
2,761 reviews
✓ Claimed

Categories

Software Company#undefinedBusiness to Business Service#undefined

Activity & Engagement

Reply Rate
0%
Avg. Reply Time
0.0 days
Claimed Date
8/10/2016

Contact Information

Address:
US

Reviews (20)

Filter by rating:
Reco K
12/27/2025
🇺🇸 United States11 reviewsOrganicUnverified
Experience date: 12/25/2025
NO1 flight search, always lowest price

This is NO1 flight search tool. It's so easy to use, and almost equally showing every provider so you have the freedom of choice. I ALWAYS use kayak and it's ALWAYS giving lowest price across all platform. Yes more freedom always comes with more scam. But it's not kayak's fault. If you got scammed by justfly or edreams, it's justfly or edream's fault, it's NOT kayak's fault, NOT google's fault, NOT att's fault, NOT mcdonald's fault. You might say "I won't be scammed if mcdonalds don't sell their burger to justfly", yes good point.

Stephen Gleit
12/6/2025
🇺🇸 United States1 reviewsOrganicUnverified
Experience date: 12/6/2025
Amazing Price Drop Feature on Kayak

I booked a refundable one way ticket on Delta.com for me and my wife. I immediately set up a Trip Notification on Kayak to alert me to a price drop. After checking daily for about a month, I received an email this morning from Kayak notifying me of a price drop of $1600 per ticket. I went to Delta.com to verify and utilizing the change option I booked 2 new tickets and received a $3200 refund to my credit card - not an ecredit. Thank you Kayak for this awesome feature on your website/app.

Thad
12/8/2025
🇺🇸 United States1 reviewsOrganicUnverified
Experience date: 11/1/2025
Kayak is fine if you book direct with airline/hotel

I've used Kayak a lot over the years, and it's always been fine since they usually redirect me to the airline's website to book the ticket. However, my wife booked through Kayak for us recently and it directed our purchase through Airfare Assist. Our experience with Airfare Assist was terrible, and I'd recommend you stay away; I have no idea why Kayak continues working with them. Airfare Assist is either incompetent or deliberately misleading folks to try to pocket extra money. We made an error when we booked and put a shortened version of my first name on the ticket. When I contacted Airfare Assist to fix my name, they claimed it would cost over $500 to fix it. I spent several days trying to sort this out with Airfare Assist including having the airline contact them to explain the free name correction policy, but Airfare Assist stubbornly maintained that the airline would charge them a name change fee and the fare difference in order to correct my name. This directly contradicts the posted policy from the airline and the advice I received on the phone from the airline's customer service. Airfare Assist's phone reps were confidently wrong with most of the information they gave me, and they were also very inconsistent with each other.

Lalith Malagamuwa
11/15/2025
🇬🇧 United Kingdom16 reviewsOrganicUnverified
Experience date: 11/14/2025
Be careful what pop up in your flight search

I was searching for a flight in KAYAK site. This was not unusual experience to me. In my search list, there was a link offering competitive flight. It was like a dream flight. But My dream flight was a nightmare. If KAYAK want to know I can give the pop up crap site for further action for the reputation of KAYAK site. I will do another review under their name of this crap site if I got the opportunity. I hope KAYAK management will be vigilant so that user will be safer. Hope all can understand what am trying to say in short.

Aaron
11/8/2025
🇺🇸 United States1 reviewsOrganicUnverified
Experience date: 10/24/2025
Return was a hassle

Return was a hassle, had to wait 30 mins to be checked

Frequently Asked Questions about Kayak

What is Kayak's Revenue?
Kayak generates approximately $235M in annual revenue. With 1,156 employees, that's $203,000 per employee.
What does Kayak do?
KAYAK searches hundreds of other travel sites at once to find the information you need to make the right decisions on flights, hotels & car hires.
How fast is Kayak growing?
Kayak has declined by 1.8% in the last 6 months according to traffic data. employee count has changed by -7% year over year.
How do people interact with Kayak?
When visiting Kayak, visitors view an average of 4.0 pages per visit, and spend around 7:18 on the site, and the bounce rate is 42.8%.
How do people find Kayak?
14.3M people (52%) visit Kayak directly. 12.6M (46%) find them through organic search. 743.0K (3%) come through paid advertising.
Who uses Kayak?
Kayak's top market is United States with 21.3M visitors (77.1%). Canada is 2nd with 1.7M (6.2%). Israel is 3rd with 308.9K (1.1%).
What technologies does Kayak use?
Kayak uses 8 technologies across their website including Advertising, Analytics & Marketing, Web Standards. Key technologies include DoubleClick Floodlight, Google Tag Manager, Twitter Cards.
Who are Kayak's competitors?
Kayak's main competitors include Text Connects, CommIT Technology Solutions, Select Business Solutions, SPRINTPARK, The Pinnacle Group Companies. These companies operate in similar markets and compete for the same customer base.
What do customers think of Kayak?
Kayak has a Trustpilot score of 2.1 out of 5 (2 stars) based on 2,761 customer reviews.

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About kayak.com

KAYAK searches hundreds of other travel sites at once to find the information you need to make the right decisions on flights, hotels & car hires.

Company Overview

kayak.com
Website
travel_and_tourism
Industry
#1,115
Global Rank
32.2M
Monthly Visitors
8
Technologies
25+
Employees

kayak.com Key Pages

Technology Stack

kayak.com uses 8 technologies across their website including DoubleClick Floodlight, Google Tag Manager, Twitter Cards, and more.

Advertising

DoubleClick Floodlight

Analytics & Marketing

Google Tag Manager

Web Standards

Twitter Cards

Build Tools

Vite

UI Libraries

Ant Design

CSS Frameworks

Bootstrap, Tailwind CSS

Traffic & Audience

32.2M
Monthly Visits
30%
Bounce Rate
5.9
Pages/Visit
3:52
Avg. Duration

kayak.com receives approximately 32.2M monthly visitors and ranks #1,115 globally. The website has a bounce rate of 30% with visitors viewing an average of 5.9 pages per visit. Users spend an average of 3:52 on the site.

The majority of kayak.com's traffic comes from undefined, undefined, .

Frequently Asked Questions

What is kayak.com?
KAYAK searches hundreds of other travel sites at once to find the information you need to make the right decisions on flights, hotels & car hires.
What technologies does kayak.com use?
kayak.com uses 8 technologies including DoubleClick Floodlight, Google Tag Manager, and 2 more. View the full tech stack analysis above.
How do I contact kayak.com?
You can contact kayak.com via email at [email protected].
What are kayak.com's social media accounts?
kayak.com is active on twitter, youtube, facebook. You can find links to all their social media profiles in the social section above.
Is kayak.com hiring?
Check kayak.com's careers page for current job openings and opportunities. The company has 25+ known employees.
How popular is kayak.com?
kayak.com receives approximately 32.2M monthly visitors and ranks #1,115 globally. Traffic is growing by 5.8% month-over-month.

Related Searches

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This page provides publicly available information about kayak.com. Data is collected from various public sources and may not always be up to date. For the most accurate information, please visit kayak.com directly at https://kayak.com.