Americans conducted 14.8 billion core searches last month, up 3% on March, according to April 2009 data from comScore.
Google Sites led the US core search market for the month with 9.5 billion (64.2%) searches conducted. It was followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3 billion searches (20.4%), and Microsoft Sites with 1.2 billion searches (8.2%).
Google, whose search share grew half a percentage point on March, is the only core search engine to experience month-over-month share growth, said comScore. However, four of the five search engines experienced increases in the number of searches conducted.
| comScore Core Search Report |
| April 2009 v March 2009 |
| Total US – Home/Work/University Locations |
| Source: comScore qSearch |
| Core search Entity |
Share of searches % |
| Mar-09 |
Apr-09 |
Point Change Apr-09 v Mar-09 |
| Total Core Search |
100.0 |
100 |
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 |
| Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers |
A recent US report from Hitwise found that the share of search traffic coming from paid listings is decreasing at the expense of organic traffic.
In the four weeks to 9 May 2009, 7.25% of search engine traffic to all categories of websites was from paid clicks (see US paid search traffic share down 26%).
Last month, search management provider SearchIgnite published a report which found that US ad spending among its clients was down 4% in the first three months of the year when compared to the same period a year earlier (see US search advertising showing signs of first quarter decline).
