Google Remains In Lead, Specifics Confusing
All the major stats services have weighed in on market share in the search industry, and Google is (predictably) still holding onto a huge lead. Problem is, no one can agree how huge that lead is. Take a look at the basic rundown chart, courtesy of Search Engine Watch:
|
Month |
comScore |
NetRatings |
Hitwise |
|
|
45.4% |
49.6% |
60.9% |
|
Yahoo |
28.2% |
23.9% |
22.3% |
|
Microsoft |
11.7% |
8.8% |
10.6% |
|
Ask |
5.8% |
2.8% |
4.3% |
|
AOL |
5.4% |
6.2% |
0.5% |
|
Others |
3.5% |
8.7% |
1.2% |
What’s responsible for the differences? Well, some of it is philosophy. NetRatings counts Ask only as Ask.com, not other Ask properties (like Excite, iWon, MyWay.com and My Web Search), which is why their numbers are smaller. HitWise appears to be giving almost all of AOL’s market share to Google (since Google powers AOL.com), giving AOL almost no presence.
Still, that doesn’t account for all the difference. If, somehow, someone caught up to Google, and we were relying on these numbers, we’d be (to use a comic book phrase) spit out of luck. On the same day we’d see three different articles:
SurprisingCompetitor.com Dethrones Google
SurprisingCompetitor.com and Google Neck-and-Neck
Google Extends Lead Over SurprisingCompetitor.com
Who the hell are we supposed to believe? Someone please give me a reason to pick one over the other (I’m a fan of Hitwise, since they have the best blog, but that’s neither here nor there), so we can just declare a winner.
The one thing to watch: According to comScore and HitWise (and NetRatings, if they counted everything), Ask.com pulled ahead of AOL in September, taking fourth place. Nice!
SEW’s got lots of charts and analysis, going back an entire year.
As Greg Linden points out, Microsoft just keeps losing market share. Why?
November 27th, 2006 at 1:29 am
[…] No matter whose numbers you believe, the facts are unmistakeable: Microsoft’s search engine is losing market share, and has been for a long time. Greg Linden posted a chart to illustrate that fact, and I’ve Office 2007′d it: […]
November 28th, 2006 at 12:52 am
One possibility is that the biggest percentage of MSN users are those who are just NOT that web savy and using the default search form on the default Internet Explorer browser HOmepage at their offices (AOL users are doing that at home)
So, perhaps those USERS are slowly becoming MORE web and search engine savy and are now TYPING in Google in the address bar - when they want to search something.
This may be viral networking, advice from co-workers, are children coming of age and growing up with search.
November 28th, 2006 at 12:55 am
_____________________________________________
One possibility is that the biggest percentage of MSN users are those who are just NOT that web savy and using the default search form on the default Internet Explorer browser HOmepage at their offices (AOL users are doing that at home)
So, perhaps those USERS are slowly becoming MORE web and search engine savy and are now TYPING in GOOGLE in the address bar - when they want to search something.
This may be viral networking, advice from co-workers, are children coming of age and growing up with search.
Sooner of later, even those non-savy baby-boomer folks have to become more savy as the Web and Search Engines Continue to grow.