Earlier this week ComScore released it’s monthly qSearch analysis report, conducted on the U.S Search Market throughout August and it shows some interesting results.
The report shows that last month there were 13.9 billion core searches performed in the U.S alone, with Google’s share of that figure being 64.9%, Yahoo!’s 19.3% and Microsoft’s 9.3%.
When comparing these figures to the previous month, it shows that whilst Yahoo!’s share remains exactly the same, Google’s share has decreased by 0.1% and Microsoft’s has increased by 0.4%.
| comScore Core Search Report* August 2009 vs. July 2009 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch |
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| Core Search Entity | Share of Searches (%) | ||
| Jul-09 | Aug-09 | Point Change Aug-09 vs. Jul-09 | |
| Total Core Search | 100.0% | 100.0% | N/A |
| Google Sites | 64.7% | 64.6% | -0.1 |
| Yahoo! Sites | 19.3% | 19.3% | 0.0 |
| Microsoft Sites | 8.9% | 9.3% | 0.4 |
| Ask Network | 3.9% | 3.9% | 0.0 |
| AOL LLC Network | 3.1% | 3.0% | -0.1 |
* 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.
When comparing the actual number of searches during the month on each Search Engine, the report shows that Google received 9 billion searches, Yahoo! 2.7 billion and Microsoft 1.3 billion, which equates to 2% rise for both Google and Yahoo! and a 7% rise for Microsoft when compared to July’s figures.
ComScore also released a report on an expanded list of Search platforms, to include all the top sites where searches are performed. Google again is top with 13 billion search queries during August, then Yahoo! with 2.8 billion, with Microsoft third with more than 1.3 billion followed by Craigslist, Inc.
The platform that experienced the most growth when compared to July’s figures was Facebook, with an impressive 20% increase, followed by Amazon Sites and MyWebSearch.com with a 10% increase and then Bing, which had increased by 7% on the previous month.
This data clearly shows that whilst Microsoft is still a very small player in the search market when compared to Google, it is slowly but surely gaining on the top players and if it keeps up its rate of growth it could be a contender and pose a threat for the top spot.
