Retailers on the smaller end of the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide rely heavily on search engine traffic for their bread and butter, reports InternetRetailer.

Based on data collected by Hitwise, the findings note 50 percent of merchants among the lower 100 enterprises on the list see 50 percent or more of their total traffic generated by search engines. Retailers on the high end of the list generally derive between 11 and 30 percent of their traffic volume from searches. Only 13 in the Top 100 saw search generate between 30 and 40 percent of visits.

Retailers that were solely e-commerce ventures with no physical presence saw an average of 64 percent of consumers hail from a search engine. Other industries that see heavy search engine numbers include catalog companies at 30 percent, chain retailers at 28 percent and manfuacturers at 27 percent.