Google accounted for 71.97% of all US internet searches conducted in the four weeks ending Nov 29, 2008, according to new figures from Hitwise.
Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 17.70%, 5.45% and 3.35%, respectively. The remaining 43 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.53% of US searches.
| Percentage of U.S. searches among leading search engine providers |
| Domain |
November 2007 |
October 2008 |
November 2008 |
| www.google.com |
63.15% |
71.70% |
71.97% |
| search.yahoo.com |
21.62% |
17.74% |
17.70% |
| search.msn.com |
9.80%* |
5.40%* |
5.45%* |
| www.ask.com |
3.72% |
3.53% |
3.35% |
| Note: Data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending Nov. 29, 2008; Nov. 1, 2008; and Nov. 24, 2007) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. |
| *Includes executed searches on Live.com and MSN Search but does not include searches on Club.Live.com. |
| Source: Hitwise, an Experian company |
Search engines continue to be the primary way internet users navigate to key industry categories, said Hitwise. Comparing November 2008 with November 2007, Business and Finance, Sports, Online Video and Social Networking categories in the US showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.
Earlier this month, eMarketer forecast that search marketing will see spending grow by 14.9% to $12.3 billion this year (see Internet to be a buyers’ market in 2009).
It said that two assumptions support this: The first is that the measurability of search will help retain many budgets and increase some others, while the second is that consumers who monetise search ads by deciding whether or not to click will be both taking money off the table (by shopping less) and putting money back on the table (by searching for deals).
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