Google Receives 71% (+1), Bing loses -5%, Yahoo looses -3% of Searches in September 2009
Those are big numbers no matter how you cut it. Getting found in Google search results is where the real money lies and with the consolidation of Yahoo and Microsoft/Bing we will see even more abandonment. As we can see from the data below, as soon as Bing quit doing their big ad spend their numbers dropped -5%.
let's contrast this to when Bing hit just a few months ago and some self promoting experts in the search engine optimization forums were claiming that Bing was going to take serious market share and give Google a run for it's money. I must admit it's UI (user interface) looked nice but I suspected users would try and it and then move away.
I suggested at that time that Bing would only do well for a short time (during the ad blitz) and then would lose the share it gained and maybe dip below. As you can see from the current charts I was proven correct.
Google converts
Google converts more eyes to customers than any of the others, period. While Yahoo and Live/Bing have 25% market share we've noticed over time if a client is only in Yahoo and or Live/Bing their sales/conversions are very small, out of proportion to the % market share and views/traffic you get from them. Even if they are found for their terms in top 3 or even 1st position. When those same clients get on the front page of Google it's like a waterfall of business.
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Percentage of U.S. searches among leading search engine provider |
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| Domain | August 2009 | September 2009 | Month-over-month % change |
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www.google.com |
70.24% |
71.08% |
1% |
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search.yahoo.com |
16.96% |
16.38% |
-3% |
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www.bing.com* |
9.48% |
8.96% |
-5% |
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www.ask.com |
2.37% |
2.56% |
8% |
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Note: Data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending Oct. 3, 2009, and Aug. 29, 2009) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. |
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*This includes executed searches on Bing.com, Live.com and MSN Search but does not include searches on Club.Live.com. |
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Source: Experian Hitwise |
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Longer searches increase this past month
Longer search queries, averaging searches of five to more than eight words in length, increased 2 percent between August and September 2009. Searches of eight or more words increased 6 percent. The same time period showed that shorter search queries - those averaging one to four words long - were flat from month to month. Searches of one word comprised the majority of searches, amounting to 24.32 percent of all queries.
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Percentage of U.S. clicks by number of keywords |
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Subject |
August 2009 |
September 2009 |
Month-over-month percent change |
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One word |
24.21% |
24.32% |
0% |
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Two words |
23.71% |
23.55% |
-1% |
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Three words |
20.74% |
20.52% |
-1% |
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Four words |
13.78% |
13.69% |
-1% |
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Five words |
7.90% |
7.94% |
1% |
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Six words |
4.23% |
4.30% |
2% |
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Seven words |
2.27% |
2.33% |
3% |
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Eight or more words |
3.16% |
3.35% |
6% |
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Note: Data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending Oct. 3, 2009, and Aug. 29, 2009) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. |
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Source: Experian Hitwise |
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Google is a greater source of traffic to key U.S. industries
Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories. Comparing September 2009 with September 2008, Automotive, Business and Finance, Entertainment, News and Media, Online Video and Sports categories showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.
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U.S. category upstream traffic from search engines and Google - September 2009 |
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Category |
Percentage of category traffic from search engines - September 2009 |
Percent change in share of traffic from search engines - September 2008 - September 2009 |
Percentage of category traffic from Google - September 2009 |
Percent change in share of traffic from Google - September 2008- September 2009 |
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Automotive |
30.30% |
17% |
21.38% |
18% |
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Business and Finance |
22.06% |
18% |
15.75% |
22% |
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Entertainment |
27.56% |
21% |
18.76% |
22% |
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Health and Medical |
43.45% |
-3% |
31.38% |
-1% |
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News and Media |
24.32% |
19% |
16.57% |
14% |
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Online Video** |
35.36% |
12% |
25.35% |
10% |
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Shopping and Classifieds |
26.54% |
6% |
18.69% |
7% |
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Social Networking** |
19.73% |
13% |
13.53% |
18% |
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Sports |
15.84% |
39% |
11.16% |
40% |
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Travel |
38.38% |
8% |
28.99% |
12% |
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Note: All figures are based on U.S. data from the Hitwise sample of 10 million Internet users. **Denotes a custom category |
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Source: Experian Hitwise |
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