Google remains well above its peers in domestic search share and total query volume, according to metrics giant comScore, which released its April 2009 U.S. Search Engine rankings today. The search giant snagged 64.2 percent of U.S. searches in April 2009, a rise of 0.5 percent from March — with those gains coming at the expense of just about every other major search site. Only the Ask Network managed to keep its search share steady.
The continued search land grab by Google is not just of concern to many of its competitors, but also to the Obama administration Justice Department. The Wall Street Journal today put Google at the top of a list of companies that should be concerned with antitrust efforts by the DOJ.
| Core Search Entity | Share of Searches (%) | ||
| Mar-09 | Apr-09 | Point Change Apr-09 vs. Mar-09 | |
| Total Core Search | 100.0 | 100.0 | N/A |
| Google Sites | 63.7 | 64.2 | 0.5 |
| Yahoo! Sites | 20.5 | 20.4 | -0.1 |
| Microsoft Sites | 8.3 | 8.2 | -0.1 |
| Ask Network | 3.8 | 3.8 | 0.0 |
| AOL LLC | 3.7 | 3.4 | -0.3 |
Also notable, under the “Expanded Search Rankings” category, was Facebook, which saw a 28 percent drop in the the number of search queries from last month, the only double-digit drop in the bunch. The biggest social-networking site in the U.S. announced a deal with Microsoft’s Live Search last October, which, based on these numbers, may not be paying dividends.
Kinda makes you think advertising in any SE other than Google is sort of a waste of time right now, really.
It actually amazed me to read that Google is still gaining share and that it only has 64%. Having never seen the numbers I would have assumed their share was much higher than that. Interesting reading.
Keep in mind that for the US alone, they have to extrapolate numbers for the estimated 250+ million internet users from their 1 million user sample size. I wonder if their margin of error encompasses the small changes in search share they note here?
Does anyone have a link for the global share of search engines?
Having worked as a SEO/SEM consultant over the years, this does not really comes as a surprise. Google has been maintaining its leadership role very well without any kind of letup!
I think this also has lessons for management schools: How to start as a leader and remain there for LONG.