Americans conducted 14.3 billion searches at the five core search engines in May 2009, with nearly two-thirds (65%) of searches performed on Google, 20% on Yahoo and 8.2% on Microsoft Sites, according to comScore qSearch data.
Though the total number of searches was down 3.8% over April 2009, Google’s share of searches rose eight tenths of a percentage point, up from 64.2% in April. The shares for Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL declined slightly. Ask Network (3.9% of searches) was up one-tenth of a percentage point, while and AOL LLC (3.1% of searches) declined two-tenths of a point.
May search data did not include figures for Microsoft’s new search engine Bing, which was launched June 1. Bing figures will be included in comScore’s June search analysis. Separate comScore research from the first two weeks of Bing’s launch showed that it had gained enough traction in the search market to rattle Google.
Total Core Searches
Google Sites accounted for 9.3 billion core searches in May, followed by Yahoo Sites with 2.9 billion and Microsoft Sites with 1.1 billion.
The total number of searches was down across the top engines overall, with AOL experiencing a 12% drop in the number of searches, and Google experiencing a 3% drop. Ask Network had the smallest percentage decrease, down 1%.
Expanded Search Rankings
In the comScore May 2009 analysis of the top properties where search activity is observed, Google Sites led with 13 billion searches. Yahoo Sites ranked second with 3 billion searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (1.2 billion) and AOL LLC (721 million).
Nielsen Online also recently released May search data, which put the total number of searches at 9.9 billion and Google holding a 63.2% share. Nielsen’s figures showed that the number of searches between April and May 2009 increased, in part because Nielsen data also tracks a number of smaller players that have experienced recent growth.
