Search Engine Market Share: January, February 2008

Compete.com blog post on February 2008 Search engine market share is interesting. Google touches 70% market share. Yahoo! drops to ~16%. Microsoft, half of Yahoo!, at 8.4%. Ask.com is less than half of Microsoft, at 3.7%, and AOL is half of Ask.com at 1.8%. In terms of query volume growth, Google has grown queries by 50% y-o-y! (almost 4B –> 6B). Yahoo! did not have any query growth y-o-y (1.3B). Microsoft had 12% query growth. Ask.com had huge query growth (55%; 200M to 310M). AOL also showed a big 45% query growth y-o-y (100M -> 150M).

Comscore data for January 2008 paints a slightly different picture, although relative positions/trends hold up. Total # of searches conducted at ‘core’ engines in January 2008 was 10.5B.

• Google: 58.5% (6.1B queries; matches roughly with Compete’s numbers)
• Yahoo!: 22.2% (2.3B queries; this is vastly higher than Compete’s numbers at 1.3B – big discrepancy. Must be in the way various services count things)
• Microsoft: 9.8% (1B queries)
• AOL network: 4.9% (510M queries)
• ASK network: 4.5% (475M queries)

Other notable sites with major query volumes include eBay (460M/month), craigslist (250M), Amazon (160M), MySpace (375M), and Facebook (100M).

Search Engine Market Share: June 2007

comScore released June 2007 Search engine market share stats few weeks ago. Google dropped a touch month/month to 49.5%. Yahoo also dropped 1% point to 25%. Microsoft notched up an impressive 3% points to 13%. Ask.com held steady at 5% and AOL dropped further to 4%. Microsoft’s gain was purely because they were offering free games to people who searched on MSN Live. Its doubtful that these queries represent ‘real’ traffic; those searches would probably not monetize well anyway, not that MSN is looking for that incremental revenue of course. So with traditional measurement metrics while it appears like MSN has gained, its not due to any improvements in the site or the engine itself.

• Total searches in the month: 8B (up 6% month/month and 26% year/year).
• Google handled 4B searches (50%)
• Yahoo handled 2B searches (25%)
• Microsoft handled 1.1B searches (13%)
• Ask network handled 400M searches (5%) – breaching 400M for first time
• AOL handled 340M searches (4%)

Compete reports slightly different numbers for Google & Ask: For July 2007 Google comes in at 66% – 4.8B queries; Yahoo at 20% – 1.44B queries; Microsoft at 10% – 744M queries; Ask.com at 3.3% – 244M queries. Compete must be including AOL under the Google column, which is fair. Not sure what else is counted under Google to make it 66% (counting Google.com only & AOL makes it 50 + 5 = 55%). Also # of queries on the Ask network may not be counted appropriately in this data set: the discrepancy b/w 244M queries reported here and 400M reported by comScore is huge.

Search Engine Market Share: May 2007

comScore released May 2007 search engine market share stats: Google crosses 50% market share–as per comScore–for first time. Everyone else decline marginally or stay flat.

• Total searches in May 2007: 7.6B (up 11% y/y and 4% over previous month)
• Google: 50.7% share (3.9B queries)
• Yahoo: 26.4% share (2B queries)
• MSN: 10.3% share (782M queries)
• Ask: 5% share (384M queries)
• AOL: 4.6% share (348M queries)

Nielsen figures have been different. Trends in Google hold up though. Ask and AOL swap places in Nielsen figures. Per Nielsen Google has 56% share, Yahoo 22%, MSN 8%, AOL 5%, Ask 2% (excluding some network searches I think).

According to HitWise, Google accounted for 65% of all US searches in a 4-week period in May 2007. Yahoo stood at 21%, MSN 8.4%, and Ask 4%.

Yahoo & MSN stats are quite close in Hitwise and Nielsen measurements (21% and 8% respectively) — their comScore numbers are not far either (26% and 10%). Ask is also in the 4-5% range per Hitwise and comScore (the 2% reported by Nielsen is due to exclusion of Ask’s network searches I believe). Only Google numbers vary a lot across various measurement systems. Differences could be due to sampling methodology, and the way searches / queries are counted, etc.

Mobile Web & Search Usage in US

30% of mobile users in the US access the web from their mobile phones, according to a study by iCrossing. US cell phone subscriber base is about ~230 million (www.ctia.org). So folks accessing the web from the mobile are ~69Million, which is significant. According to the study, half of these access the web several times a week. A majority of those who access the web from theri mobile devices, 75%, conduct searches. They mainly use GYMA search engines, reflecting their PC-search choices.

Local info, weather, maps/directions form majority of the queries. Interestingly, about 85% of these mobile-web users expect mobile versions of the web sites they visit. This implies that there is a high incentive to create mobile versions of web sites.

Search Engine Market Share: April 2007

comScore just released Search Engine market share data for April 2007. Google inches to ~50% of the market. Yahoo, MSFT, Ask, and AOL together account for 47%. Total searches conducted in April 2007 were 7.3B, unchanged from March, but 11% up year/year.

• Google – 49.7% share (3.6B searches)
• Yahoo – 26.8% share (2B searches)
• MSFT – 10.3% share (757 million searches)
• Ask – 5.1% share (376 million searches)
• AOL – 5% share (364 million searches)

Internet Advertising growing at 35% y/y

IAB reports today that Internet Advertising in 2006 grew by 35% over 2005 to $17B. Display advertising grew fastest y/y at 47%; classifieds grew 44%; keyword search grew 32%. Market share breakdown:

• Display Advertising 22% – $3.75B (y/y growth: 47%)
• Rich media display advertising 7% – $1.19B
• Keyword search 40% – $6.8B (y/y growth: 32%)
• Classifieds 18% – $3.06B (y/y growth: 44%)
• Lead generation 8%

Search Engine Market Share: January 2007

comScore released US search engine market share statistics for January 2007:

• Google: – 47.5% (3.3B searches); 1xG
• Yahoo: – 28.1% (1.9B searches); 0.59xG
• MSN: – 10.6% (733M searches); 0.22xG
• Ask.com: – 5.2% (361M searches); 0.11xG
• AOL:  – 5% (342M searches); 0.105xG

A total of 6.9 billion searches were conducted in January 2007 (up 2% over December 2006). This represents a healthy 26% growth in query volume year-over-year.

A different perpective on search market share is offered here.

US Internet audience size is 175M. In terms of unique visitors to respective network sites, here is the breakdown: Yahoo sites (#1 129M), AOL (#2, 117M), MSN (#3, 115M), Google (#4, 113M), Ask.com (#8, 49M).

Search Engine Market Share: December 2006

comScore networks released December 2006 search engine market share data and it shakes out as follows:

• Google – 47.3% (3.2 billion queries) – 1x G
• Yahoo – 28.5% (1.9 billion queries)  – 0.6x G
• MSN – 10.5% (713 million queries)  – 0.22x G
• Ask.com – 5.4% (363 million queries) – 0.11x G
• AOL – 4.9% (335 million queries) – 0.10x G

Search volume is growing 30% year-over-year. It was up 1% for December 2006 over November same year. I am a bit surprised that it was not up more in December, over November. I would’ve assumed that travel and online shopping should’ve driven more searches. On the other hand, may be niche travel and shopping engines are probably taking most of that growth rather than general purpose engines. Also, what may have balanced the uptick in shopping and travel searches, is a lull in school / work related search activity owing to vacations and such. The yearly search volume growth (30%) is healthy though. It would be nice to see a break up of the key search categories that are gaining in that incremental 30%. Some of the top ones may be as follows: Local, Health, Travel, Shopping, Reference, Sports and Entertainment. The usual suspects I suppose.

For more on the search market’s winners and losers see Danny Sullivan’s post at  Search Engine Land.