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.