Demographics

Search Engines and Searches

For most internet users, going online is often about finding information, according to an eMarketer report ‘US Internet Users 2013: Solid, Saturated Market for Web, Search and Email'. Search is the first stop on the web when it comes to researching anything. Google continues to overwhelmingly lead in search usage, ahead of Yahoo! and Bing. Though PC searches still dominate, users are moving more and more of their inquiries to smartphones and tablets-both on the go and at home.

The number of search engine users will surpass 200 million this year, according to eMarketer. Nearly 84% of those who go online will use a search engine at least once per month in 2013. eMarketer expects that search engine users will represent two out of three people in the US by 2015. Growth will fall below 3% next year and slow throughout the remainder of the forecast period. Like email, search is one of the most basic and necessary online activities and has reached saturation among internet users.

US search engine users, 2012-2017:
- 2012: 197.5 million (or 83.1% of internet users and 62.9% of population)
- 2013: 204.1 million (or 83.8% of internet users and 64.5% of population)
- 2014: 210.0 million (or 84.4% of internet users and 65.9% of population)
- 2015: 215.0 million (or 84.6% of internet users and 66.9% of population)
- 2016: 219.0 million (or 84.8% of internet users and 67.6% of population)
- 2017: 222.8 million (or 85.0% of internet users and 68.3% of population)

(eMarketer, Mach 2013)

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More than 17.6 billion searches were conducted in December 2012 (up 4%), with Google Sites ranking first with 11.8 billion (up 4%). Microsoft Sites ranked second with 2.9 billion searches (up 5%), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.2 billion (up 5%), Ask Network with 534 million (up 5%), and AOL, Inc. with 310 million (up 4%).

Google Sites led the search market in December 2012 with 66.7% of search queries conducted, according to monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the US search marketplace.  Google Sites was followed by Microsoft Sites with 16.3% and Yahoo! Sites with 12.2%.  (comScore, January 2013)

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Google Sites led the search market in March 2012 with 66.4% of search queries conducted, according to comScore. Google Sites were followed by Microsoft Sites with 15.3% and Yahoo! Sites with 13.7%. Ask Network accounted for 3.0% of searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.6%.

18.4 billion searches were conducted in March 2012. (comScore, April 2012)

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Google accounted for 66.69% of all US searches conducted in the four weeks ending February 26, 2011, according to Experian Hitwise. Bing-powered search comprised 28.48% of searches for the month (with Yahoo! Search and Bing receiving 14.99% and 13.49%, respectively). The remaining 69 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis report accounted for 4.68% of US searches.

Yahoo! Search and Bing achieved the highest success rates in February 2011. This means that for both search engines, more than 81% of searches executed resulted in a visit to a Website. Google achieved a success rate of 66%. The share of unsuccessful searches highlights the opportunity for both the search engines and marketers to evaluate the search engine result pages to ensure that searchers are finding relevant information.

Longer search queries - five to eight words - were down 2% from January 2011 to February 2011. Shorter search queries - those averaging one to four words long - were flat from January 2011 to February 2011. One-word searches comprised the majority of searches, amounting to 23.86% of all queries, a 2% increase from January 2011 to February 2011. (Experian Hitwise, March 2011)

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Bing continues to grow, reaching a new milestone. In August 2010, Microsoft's search engine surpassed Yahoo! in US search volume for the first time to become the second most used search engine, according to Nielsen. The data shows that Bing's share of US search queries increased by 2% since July, reaching 13.9% of search volume. Still, Google remained a strong first, receiving 65.1% of search volume.

Top 5 search engines in the US, ranked by search share, August 2010:
1. Google: 65.1% share (+1% vs. Previous month)
2. MSN/Windows Live/Bing: 13.9% (+2%)
3. Yahoo!: 13.1% (-8%)
4. Ask.com: 2.1% (0%)
5. AOL: 2.0% (0%)

Bing has been growing all year. Nielsen reports that its share of search queries jumped by 30% from August 2009 to 2010. In comparison, Yahoo! saw a decline of 18%, and Google remained relatively flat at 1% growth. However, Nielsen's data needs perspective, since it's the only company giving Bing second place. comScore said Bing received 11.1% of search share in August, compared to Yahoo!'s 17.4%, and Hitwise said Bing got 9.87% of search share, compared to Yahoo!'s 14.3%. Google remains the undisputed powerhouse of search, with comScore giving it 65.4% of search share and Hitwise 71.59%.

Despite the differences, one trend is clear: Bing is growing and Yahoo! is declining in search share. All three research firms find the same pattern comparing August 2010 with a year earlier. Google has taken notice of Bing's growth and started adopting similar features, according to The New York Times. Some examples include modifying their search algorithm, giving users the option of a background picture and left-side navigation tools.

Bing will see further growth because of its partnership with Yahoo!. On August 24, Bing began powering Yahoo!'s search, effectively doubling its query volume. Bing will still have less than half of Google's 65.1% share, but this deal puts it in the position of being the only real competition for Google's search volume. (eMarketer, September 2010)

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Search spending among travel advertisers in the US was 24% higher in April 2010 than it was during the same month in 2009, with average cost-per-click ads in the sector rising by 24% over that 12 month period, according to data from Efficient Frontier. Cost-per-click level reached US$0.71 in April 2010. (ClickZ, May 2010)

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As it nears the year anniversary of its official re-launch, share of US searches for Microsoft's Bing has contracted for two consecutive months, according to data from Hitwise. The engine enjoyed three months of consistent growth until February, during which it reached 9.7% of searches, but that figure dropped to 9.62% in March, and further to 9.43% in April.

Year-over-year, however, Microsoft has almost doubled its share of searches from the 5.68% its engine represented in April 2009.  Having grown by a surprising 21% in March 2010, Ask.com's share nosedived 37% in April, accounting for just over 2% of searches overall. Yahoo's share also dipped slightly, down 1% versus March. Meanwhile, Google's share grew 2%, month-over-month, accounting for almost 72% of searches. Year-over-year, Google's share has therefore dipped by 1.34% points.

Share of US searches among leading providers, April 2010:
1. www.google.com: 71.40% of searches (+2% compared to March 2010)
2. search.yahoo.com: 14.96% (-1%)
3. www.bing.com: 9.43% (-2%)
4. www.ask.com: 2.18% (-37%)
(ClickZ, May 2010)

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Experian Hitwise revealed the top search engines sites in the US for the 4 weeks ending May 22 2010, ranked by volume of searches.

Top search engines for the industry "All Categories" in the US, for the 4 weeks ending May 22 2010 by volume of searches:
1. www.google.com: 72.00%
2. search.yahoo.com: 14.58%
3. www.bing.com: 9.20%
4. www.ask.com: 2.18%
5. www.aolsearch.com: 1.06%

Top search engines for the industry "Computers and Internet - Search Engines" in the US, for the week ending May 22 2010 by visits:
1. Google: 65.96%
2. Yahoo! Search: 12.06%
3. Bing: 10.34%
4. Ask: 1.96%
5. AOL Search: 1.11%
6. bing Videos: 0.64%
7. Yahoo! Image Search: 0.58%
8. Dogpile: 0.50%
9. bing Images: 0.44%
10. Google Images: 0.37%
(Experian Hitwise, May 2010)

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Americans conducted 15.5 billion searches in April 2010, according to comScore. Google Sites led the US search market in April with 64.4% of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites (up 0.8% points to 17.7%), and Microsoft Sites (up 0.1% points to 11.8%).

Both Yahoo! Sites and Microsoft Sites have experienced gains due in part to the introduction of new site navigation experiences that tie content and related search results together within several channels. These features provide search results to users as they navigate through topical content and meet comScore's established criteria for counting search queries. Ask Network captured 3.7% of the search market, followed by AOL LLC with 2.4%.

comScore search report, April 2010 (Total US - Home/Work/University Locations):
- Google Sites: 64.4% of searches (-0.7% compared to March 2010)
- Yahoo! Sites: 17.7% (+0.8%)
- Microsoft Sites: 11.8% (+0.1%)
- Ask Network: 3.7% (-0.1%)
- AOL LLC Network: 2.4% (-0.1%)

Americans conducted 15.5 billion searches in April, up slightly from March. Google Sites accounted for 10 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites (2.8 billion), Microsoft Sites (1.8 billion), Ask Network (574 million) and AOL LLC (371 million).

In the April analysis of the top properties where search activity is observed, Google Sites led the search market with 14.0 billion search queries, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.8 billion queries and Microsoft Sites with 1.9 billion. Amazon Sites experienced sizeable growth during the month with an 8% increase to 245 million searches, rounding off the top 10 ranking. (comScore, May 2010)

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Google continued to grow its dominance of the paid search space during the first quarter of 2010, according to a report from agency Efficient Frontier. The agency's State of Search Report estimates Google accounted for almost ¾ of all spending on search advertising in the US during the first three months of 2010, up from a 74.2% share in Q1 2009 and 72.3% share in Q4.

Microsoft's Bing engine also experienced substantial relative growth, accounting for 6.5% of spend during the first quarter of this year, up from just 4.5% in Q1 2009.

Growth for those two parties comes at the expense of Yahoo's ailing search product, which saw its share of spend drop to 18.7% from 21.3%. Similar trends were evident for share of clicks.

Of course, Microsoft and Yahoo penned an agreement in July that effectively made Bing the default provider of paid search services on Yahoo sites for the next 10 years, with the pair splitting the revenue generated from traffic through Yahoo properties. (ClickZ, April 2010)

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Making it onto the first page of results from Google, Yahoo! or Bing has always been a major goal, with marketers aware that consumers will give up after relatively few hits. Data from iCrossing analyzing natural-search referrals shows that only a tiny number come from results after the first page.

US natural search visits from Google, Yahoo! And Bing, by search engine results page, Q2-Q4 2009 (% of total in each group):
- Google: 95.8% (page 1) / 2.5% (page 2) / 1.7% (other)
- Yahoo!: 95.2% / 2.8% / 1.9%
- Bing: 95.0% / 3.4% / 1.6%

That was true across the big three search engines, with at least 95% of traffic from each originating from the first page of results after a non-branded search. Less than 2% of search-referred traffic came from clickers persistent enough to look for results after the second page.

Marketers recognize the importance of investment in search optimization so they will appear in those results and benefit from the huge portion of clicks that go to the top hits. The Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) found that search optimization was the third priority of senior marketers worldwide, after social networking and improving digital infrastructure. A report from Econsultancy and ExactTarget indicated natural search would see a rise in spending by online marketers worldwide, nearly 2/3 of whom planned to increase outlays in the channel.

iCrossing also found that, in terms of referrals rather than queries, Google is doing even better than reported by researchers such as comScore, which found that 65.7% of US search queries in December 2009 were conducted on Google.

Google, Yahoo! and Bing US market share of natural non-branded search visits, Q2-Q4 2009 (% of total):
- Google: 74%
- Yahoo!: 13%
- Bing: 13%

Counting referrals for non-branded search terms, Google's share rose to nearly 3/4. (eMarketer, February 2010)

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Google accounted for 72.25% of all US searches conducted in the four weeks ending Jan. 2, 2010, according to Experian® Hitwise®.

Yahoo! Search, Bing and Ask.com received 14.83%, 8.92% and 2.54%, respectively. The remaining 66 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.48% of US searches.

Percentage of US searches among leading search engine providers, December 2009:
1. www.google.com: 72.25% (+1% compared to November 2009)
2. search.yahoo.com: 14.83% (-4%)
3. www.bing.com: 8.92% (-4%)
4. www.ask.com: 2.54% (-4%)

Shorter search queries (averaging searches of 1-4 words in length) were flat between November and December 2009. Searches of 1-2 words increased 1%. The same time period showed that longer search queries (those averaging 5 to more than 8 words long) were down 2% from month to month. Searches of 1 word comprised the majority of searches, amounting to 24.34% of all queries.

Percentage of U.S. clicks by number of keywords, December 2009:
- 1 word: 24.34% (+1% compared to November 2009)
- 2 words: 23.41% (+1%)
- 3 words: 20.32% (0%)
- 4 words: 13.79% (0%)
- 5 words: 8.02% (-1%)
- 6 words: 4.37% (-1%)
- 7 words: 2.37% (-2%)
- 8 or more words: 3.38% (-5%)
(Hitwise North America Newsletter - January 2010, January 2010)

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Search engines continue to be the primary way internet users navigate to key US industry categories. Google was sending the most visits to the travel industry in December 2009 among the top three search engines. Google's percentage of upstream traffic grew in the last year.

Percentage of US upstream traffic from search engines in the travel industry, December 2009:
- Google: 29.55% (up from 27.09% in December 2008)
- Yahoo!: 4.02% (down from 4.99%)
- Bing: 2.78% (up from 1.88%)

(Hitwise North America Newsletter - January 2010, January 2010)

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Americans conducted 14.7 billion searches in December 2009, with Google Sites leading the search market and accounting for 65.7% search market share, virtually unchanged from 65.6% in November 2009, according to comScore.

Search Report, December 2009 (Total US - Home/Work/University Locations):
1. Google Sites: 65.7% (+0.1% compared to November 2009) / 9.7 billion searches
2. Yahoo! Sites: 17.3% (-0.2%) / 2.5 billion
3. Microsoft Sites: 10.7% (+0.4%) / 1.6 billion
4. Ask Network: 3.7% (-0.1%) / 545 million
5. AOL LLC Network: 2.6% (-0.2%) / 383 million
(ComScore, January 2010)

Last Updated on Tuesday, 30 April 2013 10:39