According to the research firm hitwise, Google’s share of U.S. Internet hit 72.7%, in April.
Yahoo was at 16.3%, Microsoft’s MSN was at 5.7% and Ask.com had 4%.
A year earlier, Google accounted for 67.9% of all U.S. searches. Yahoo, MSN and Ask were 20%, 9% and 5%, respectively, from last year.
Hitwise said Thursday that search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to industry categories. Comparing April numbers with a year earlier, business and finance, sports, online video and social-networking categories again showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.
In addition, the Hitwise survey shows the length of search queries has increased in the past year. Specifically, searches of five to more than eight words in length increased 7% from last year.
I’m from Canada myself, so I’m not sure what the numbers are here versus elsewhere, however based on what I’ve observed here, I have to say I’m quite surprised the Yahoo’s total share of searches is even that high — I know just about noone who uses Yahoo anymore, despite these stats suggesting about 1 in 6 do. That said, I’ve been using Yahoo a bit more myself lately and I actually find that they often deliver more accurate results. I’m no SEO expert, however it seems to be harder to “game” than Google and gives newer sites a better chances of showing up at a decent position in the rankings… It’d be interesting to see a breakdown of what age group uses what search engine. I would imagine the younger web user’s usage of Google and MSN is likely quite a bit higher than that of older web users. Nice to see people are making longer searches and should benefit those with good multi-word domains as well as those optimizing for the long tail.
Google is ruling the market and I can’t see anything slowing them down. Here in Europe they are hitting the 90 % market share.
By the way, i just seen microsoft-office.com being on auction with 3 hours to go at sedo. Unbelievable such a trademark violation.
Sporry, microsoft office.com not at sedo it’s godaddy auctions.
@ Reece…….I think that Yahoo has as big of a share of search b/c a lot of domainers park with them…….including me. I try not to do business with Google when I can.
I also agree that Yahoo has better results…….unless you are talking about maps and such. The add-ons that G has are better sometimes.
My collective network traffic stats parallel the Hitwise figures. At a nearly 4% annual market share loss, Yahoo is just about at the end of the road. Keep in mind that MSN Search has been able to hold on to a measly single digit market share buoyed solely by their computer software brand. Yahoo on the other hand has nothing to cling to at this point but their failing search engine.
The complete monopolization of search and online advertising by Google looks just about certain at this point. Risk management through traffic diversification was paramount to keeping any online business afloat. Take that away from the equation, and you have a brutal business environment for just about everyone.
I started recently using Yahoo again because it gives another results than Google and sometimes finds things Google can’t
Can anyone that is saying yahoo gives better results actually prove it? I’m a person that will go with whoever gives me the best information and a long time yahoo user, I actually had to train myself to use google. So can you show me where yahoo gives better results?
Wow, it looks like Google is still pulling further ahead. The ratio of Google to Yahoo search percentages is about the same as what I have been seeing in my traffic stats on my main site.