SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

February 5, 2007

Nielsen to Acquire Remaining Shares of NetRatings

The Nielsen Company, formerly VNU, announced plans to acquire the remaining interest in NetRatings. Nielsen currently owns 60 percent of the company, which it bought in 1998. It will pay about $327 million to buy the remaining shares. NetRatings' board has approved the move. The merger is expected to be completed in the second quarter.

Hopefully, this will mean I will never again have to use "//" anywhere other than in a URL, as in "Nielsen//NetRatings." If only we could convince Avenue A|Razorfish to do the same.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:34 AM | Permalink

January 31, 2007

More Search Share Numbers

Following the share-of-search statistics from Compete and comScore, we now have numbers from Hitwise and Nielsen/NetRatings.

Nielsen puts Google on top with 50.8 percent of all searches in December, with Yahoo in second with 23.6 percent. Windows Live Search is a distant third with 8.4 percent, then AOL with 6.1 percent.

Hitwise puts Google at 63.1 percent for both December and January. Yahoo volume dropped slightly from 21.6 percent in December to 21.4 percent in January. MSN Search gained share slightly, from 9.5 percent in December to 9.9 percent in January. Ask volume dipped from 3.7 percent of search volume in December to 3.5 percent in January. AOL saw a modest decline, from 0.6 percent share of searches in December to 0.5 percent in January.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:10 PM | Permalink

November 22, 2006

Search Popularity Stats, Sliced & Diced

Catch up time on search engine popularity stats. comScore and NetRatings put out October 2006 figures this week, plus Hitwise released those earlier this month. Google's still tops, Yahoo still strong, Microsoft is still dropping and Ask surpasses AOL's search share, according to comScore. Below, the trend from all of them over the past year, plus my long-promised compare-and-contrast charts.

First, let's do a compare-and-contrast table with the basic figures from each service. These show the estimated share of the number of searches that happened in the United States in October 2006.

Month

comScore

NetRatings

Hitwise

Google

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%

Across the board, all the services put Google in the lead, Yahoo second and Microsoft's Windows Live third (sorry, I still say MSN on the chart). Two of the services put Ask over AOL in the fourth place spot. More analysis on all this in the service trend charts, below.

Here's comScore figures over the past year:

Remember that Google drop back in July, when lots of people started freaking out about the demise of the Big G. I warned not to focus on month-to-month changes. Since then, Google's recovered according to comScore and keeps going.

Yahoo's seen declines since July, but not enough to send up the alarm bells. They are well within the usual ranges that I've discussed are the things to watch. That range is the 25 to 30 percent slice of the chart.

In contrast, Microsoft continues on its long, steady drop in popularity. It will especially be interesting to see the figures in the next few months, as IE7 rolls out and potentially gives Microsoft Live Search a bump. Or not. My Searching Via Internet Explorer 7 & The Battle To Be The Default Search Engine article talks more about the changes in IE7 that might help drive traffic.

Unnoticed, as far as I can tell, is the fact that in September, Ask overtook AOL for the fourth slot in the search engine share battle. That's a big deal. In fact, according to comScore, AOL is on track to plunge out of the 5 to 10 percent band it has occupied over the past year. Ask is hanging in there.

Of course, the traffic for Ask isn't just for Ask.com. It's for the combination of sites that Ask owns or controls, including places like Excite, iWon, MyWay.com and My Web Search. Still, as a network, Ask remains controlling a significant chunk of the search space.

That's what comScore says. Now let's see how it looks at NetRatings:

Basically, NetRatings shows status quo. Google and Yahoo keep ticking along at the same levels. So does Ask. AOL hangs in roughly the same general range. It's Microsoft Windows Live (MSN on the chart) that catches my eye most with consistent decline.

Also note that with NetRatings, AOL is well above Ask. That's because NetRatings is only reporting the share for Ask.com. If other Ask-owned properties were combined, then the Ask figure would be higher. Much of that traffic instead flows into the "Other" line.

Next to Hitwise:

Hitwise doesn't go back as far as NetRatings and comScore, so it's harder to feel confident about trends. But the trends are similar to comScore, a slight Google rise, Yahoo holding steady, Ask above AOL and that decline of MSN.

Now back to what I promised ages ago, the old-style comparison charts I used to do. Here are all three services together, showing share score for October 2006:

Now let me explain what I think is unique in charting the figures this way. Usually, you'd see a comparison using a bar chart. Shares for Google from all three services would be shown as three bars next to each other, then the same for Yahoo and so on.

I like doing these as line charts, because it makes the gaps more noticeable and gives you a trend as well.

For example, you can see how all the services rate Google tops, though the amount Google is above the others may vary. Conclusion? While Google's exact popularity is uncertain, it's clearly more popular than anyone else, the services agree.

Notice that with Yahoo, they all agree it is in second place and the general range of popularity is closer (roughly between 25 to 30 percent). For MSN (Windows Live), the all come together. When you hit AOL, Hitwise is the big player that's way off the mark from the other two. I've covered this before, that I don't think Hitwise is getting accurate information about AOL that causes this. But seeing the two big skews -- that Hitwise puts Google so high above the others and AOL so low -- makes me think that if AOL was counted correctly, then Hitwise would be reflecting the same general trend as the others.

Now let's trend each of the major search engines using figures from all three services. Here's Google:

Fair to say, Google's pretty much continuing to grow, despite the hiccups you might see from time-to-time on various services.

Here's Yahoo:

Generally, I think it's fair to say that Yahoo had a spike in popularity earlier this year but has settled down more to its usual levels. That's not bad. It has healthy, long-term traffic. What remains to be seen is if it can grow that traffic more in the long term.

Here's Microsoft:

Slice it how you want, no one is reporting a pretty picture for Microsoft. Unlike Yahoo, they haven't held share. It's drop, drop, drop.

Here's AOL, which similar to Microsoft, shows drops:

I'm sorry I don't have the similar chart for Ask. I'll try to add it later, but I shut my spreadsheet (argh) before saving my comparison numbers, so I have some more copy and pasting to do to get that chart back.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:19 AM | Permalink

November 21, 2006

Web Increasingly Used For Local Service Business Searches

Local online marketing firm WebVisible conducted an online survey this past August regarding Internet usage to find a local service business. The survey used Nielsen//NetRatings' online panel and asked about behavior within the past 90 days. Among more than 2,800 consumer responses, 70% had used the Internet to search for a local service business and 46% did so in the past three months. (Roughly 78% of the US adult population is online.) Almost 90% found search to be “somewhat effective” or “very effective” in finding local services in their area. And 68% said they would most likely use the phone number on the website to contact a vendor.

This means that people are using the Internet to find local service businesses in significant numbers and are pretty happy with the experience. Also interesting is the traditional method used to contact these local businesses – the telephone (PPCall opportunity).

There's more interesting data in the survey and I'll be doing a longer write-up after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:29 PM | Permalink

October 24, 2006

Google Gains Traction In Japan

InfoWorld reports that Google has "17.4 million users in September, up from 12.1 million in the same period a year earlier." This gives Google the 10th spot in the Japan's web property ranking. Google the 10th spot in the Japan's web property ranking. The NetRatings study shows Yahoo Japan holding 23.6 million visits during the month. Google has the 3rd most page views of the top 10, with 2 billion page views for the month.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:26 AM | Permalink

October 13, 2006

Consumer Satisfaction Doesn't Equal Market Share

Earlier this week J.D. Power and Associates released the findings of its "2006 Residential Online Service Customer Satisfaction Study." The study, based on a survey of more than 10,000 U.S. residential Internet users, found that Yahoo Messenger ranked the highest among IM clients and that – and this is something of a surprise – InfoSpace's Dogpile had the highest rankings among search engines.

Here are the rankings of IM clients in terms of customer satisfaction:

1. Yahoo! Messenger 2. MSN Messenger 3. Windows Messenger 4. Instant Message Average 5. Google Talk 6. Trillian 7. AIM/AOL Instant Messenger

Compare that to U.S. IM market share (per Nielsen//Netratings):

1. AOL 2. MSN 3. Yahoo 4. Google

The J.D. Power report also said that U.S. residential IM usage was flat vs. 2005, at 36%. Yet the survey found that "among customers who report using IM on a regular or occasional basis, nearly 70 percent report that to some degree, instant messaging has replaced the use of traditional telephones." There are implications here for traditional telephony that are striking and worth further exploration.

Probably more interesting to readers of this blog are the search-engine findings. The survey reported that 75% of residential Internet subscribers used multiple search engines.

Here's the market-share breakdown that J.D. Power found:

1. Google: 51% (up 8 points from 2005) 2. Yahoo: 17% (down 4 points) 3. AOL: 9% (down 1 point)

The release doesn't report on the respective shares of Ask or MSN/Windows Live. Presumably they constitute the remaining 23% of usage or something approaching that.

Compare comScore August search market share data:

1. Google Sites: 44% 2. Yahoo: 28.7% 3. MSN: 12.5% 4. AOL: 5.6% 5. Ask: 5.5%

Here are the J.D. Power survey's customer satisfaction findings. Little used Dogpile was ranked number one:

1. Dogpile 2. Ask.com 3. Google 4. Yahoo! Search 5. AOL Search 6. MSN Search 7. Internet Explorer (treated as a search engine in the survey)

I don't have any insight into the survey methodology so we have to take the results at face value. But 10,000+ respondents is a very large sample. A disconnect is the difference between search engine market share and the satisfaction ratings. Based on these findings one would think that if Ask and (especially) Dogpile could gain broader awareness and visibility they might be able to gain some share.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:19 AM | Permalink

August 22, 2006

NetRatings: Tiny Google Decline, But Not The First Time & Yahoo Growth

Yesterday I looked at the latest figures out of comScore that showed Google seeing its first drop in search share for nearly a year. My review of rating service figures continues today with NetRatings. They also show a Google drop, but far less than the comScore figures.

We'll get to the NetRatings figures in a moment, but first a look back at comScore. I said I had some follow-up questions for them. comScore kindly responded, and you'll find answers postscripted here.

I poked a bit at comScore for spinning its figures in press releases to gain attention. But exactly as Frank Barnako notes, all the ratings services do it. Heck, newspapers do it, and we do it ourselves on occasion, look for an angle that will attract attention to a story.

The main thing I'm trying to encourage with any of the figures you review -- or really anything you read -- is to use that old "critical thinking" stuff that my high school teachers used to pound into my head. Question everything and wonder about what's not being said or examined. Amr Awadallah gives an example of this from earlier in the year.

As another example, we have the situation now, where Google saw a July 2006 decline in marketshare as reported by comScore. Beginning of the end, or perhaps something you'd expect? As I noted, month-to-month or month-to-year-ago figures might not be enough to tell the story. As it turns out from the long-term comScore chart I showed earlier, Google's had declines before. That's not in the press release that went out, but comScore did highlight it in the follow-up they sent me:

We agree with your assessment that a single-month decline does not constitute a trend. In fact, comScore also observed a similar seasonal decline for Google during the same period last year. Fewer work days, more vacations, and reliance on academia could all contribute to Google's core user group showing lower online activity and conducting fewer searches during this time period. Bottom line – Google could be more impacted by seasonality than other engines

Now let's head into NetRatings. I was going to do Hitwise today, but ever so coincidentally, NetRatings put out its latest search share figures a few hours after comScore released theirs. Funny how that happens, eh?

The release isn't online yet, but you can watch for it via the NetRatings press page here. There was no particular spin to it, just a simple headline of:

Nielsen//NetRatings Announces July U.S. Search Share Rankings

FYI, NetRatings didn't play down an angle in the wake of my comScore article. Go through the archives, and you'll see that this is how releases of search share have been put out by NetRatings since May, all low key. Of course, go back a bit further and then you get into releases that also pitch angles.

How about those figures? Here they are, all searches within the United States:

July 2006

Share

Searches (Millions)

Searches Per Day (Millions)

Google

49.2%

2,776

92.5

Yahoo

23.8%

1,346

44.9

MSN

9.6%

542

18.1

AOL

6.3%

355

11.8

Ask

2.6%

149

5.0

My Way

2.3%

129

4.3

EarthLink

0.6%

32

1.1

iWon

0.6%

31

1.0

Netscape

0.5%

29

1.0

Dogpile

0.4%

24

0.8

Others

4.1%

233

7.8

Total

100.0%

5,646

188.2

Now let's look at some trends. Pulling the chart from my now updated Nielsen NetRatings Search Engine Ratings page, we get this

You can see the tiniest of drops for Google from June to July. For Yahoo, a marked rise. MSN continues that slow, slow drop. Now for some drill downs.

One of the key things I said yesterday about dealing with search share figures is to watch patterns over a long period of time and also look at what's happening with different services. If you only watched comScore, Google had nearly a year of rises until July's fall. Seeing a drop and only knowing about comScore figures might be alarming.

In contrast, the chart above shows that Google's gone through several declines more recently, at least according to NetRatings. In April 2006, it had a peak of 49.8 percent of the search share in the US. The next month in May it dropped nearly a full point to 49.1 percent. The following month in June, a slight rise to 49.4 percent. Then in July, a slight drop to 49.2 percent.

Go back further to May 2005. Starting that month at 48.0 percent, Google drops each month through September 2005 to 45.1 percent, nearly three full points! Alarm bell time!

Perhaps at the time, some might have felt that way. But then you see the traffic come back up. As comScore noted, it might be that Google gets hit more by seasonal swings. If they have a heavier than normal school and university audience, perhaps that group is searching less during the summertime in the Northern Hemisphere.

When I'm looking at the figures, I'm watching to see if the line moves through important bands. Again, see the NetRatings chart above. Every fifth percent mark has a solid line. I'm less worried if Google goes up or down between the 45 and 50 percent marks. I'm more interested if it breaks out of that band in either direction for a long period of time.

That's one reason why when comScore figures were ringing some alarms with some analysts earlier this year, I felt pretty mellow about Yahoo. In the comScore stats, it was staying within the 25 to 30 percent band it had been in for several months. Moreover, the NetRatings figures had Yahoo pretty solid in the 20 to 25 percent range.

In contrast, it's really hard to be positive about MSN. comScore showed it marching out of the 15 to 20 percent range back in October and into the 10 to 15 percent band. OK, Yahoo stepped out of the 30 to 35 percent range around the same time. But NetRatings also showed MSN doing a long dead-man-walking decline, unlike the case with Yahoo. The latest NetRating figures have just taken it into the 5 to 10 percent range, from the 10 to 15 percent range it previously was in. Even more alarming is the fact that this decline all comes after significant spending MSN has done to try and build its search brand. That spending clearly hasn't helped.

I'll be watching over the next several months to see if the MSN decline reverses. Of course, domain "roll-ups" might be a factor.

Every service "rolls-up" a number of domains to create traffic figures. For example, the "Ask" figures from comScore will include Ask.com plus some Ask-powered web sites. NetRatings, in contrast, will count Ask.com traffic separately than traffic to Ask-powered sites such as iWon.

The MSN figures might not be counting some of the Windows Live traffic that Microsoft is generating. Windows Live is the new leading brand, and more and more traffic is being pushed there. I'm checking with NetRatings about this.

As a side note, I wish all the ratings services spelled-out exactly all the domains that are used to measure the traffic to respective services. It would make it much easier to know if they are neglecting anything important.

How about the other major players on the chart? You'll see AOL has a big spike in August 2005. I'm not sure what happened there, but it was probably a change to counting methodology. I'm checking with NetRatings on this. But that type of spike is another reason that taking two particular months and comparing them out of context with surrounding months can be dangerous.

Finally, there's Ask.com, which keeps plugging away. The key thing to keep in mind here, as I noted already, is that NetRatings measures for Ask.com while comScore measures for the entire Ask network.

Tomorrow, I'll look at some Hitwise figures. Hitwise was actually the first out this month with ratings from July. If you're itching to see them, jump on over here. Unlike comScore and NetRatings, they show Google making a gain from June 2006 to July 2006. Like the other two services, they do agree on a Yahoo gain between those months. Bill Tancer over there has also just done a weekly breakdown going into August that shows slight Yahoo and MSN gains and slight Google losses.

Also, just a last note of encouragement to all the rating services. I like them. I know they have problem and that the stats aren't perfect. But they give us all a starting place. The purpose of this series isn't to knock the services but rather help educate those who look at this figures on how to better assess them.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:21 AM | Permalink

June 21, 2006

Nielsen//NetRatings Stats Keep Google On Top In May 2006

Last month, Nielsen/NetRatings had Google hitting the 50 percent mark of percentage of searches handled in the United States (when rounded up from 49.8%). This month, Google slips back down very slightly to 49 percent. I've warned before that you should be wary of month-to-month changes. That said, here's the rundown, which gives Yahoo a percentage gain to Google's loss:

Search Engine April 2006 May 2006 Google 49.8% 49.1% Yahoo 21.9% 22.9% MSN 10.7% 10.6%

More from the full release at the end of this post. Meanwhile, we already had May 2006 stats from Hitwise, so how do the two compare?

May 2006 Hitwise NetRatings Google 59% 49% Yahoo 22% 23% MSN 12% 11%

comScore's May 2006 search query stats haven't yet been publicly released. Watch for them in a future post. Past NetRatings and comScore figures are here:

Yes, I'm working on getting the most recent stats added to those pages. Here's the full NetRatings release:

Nielsen//NetRatings today released May 2006 U.S. MegaView Search findings, including top search providers, ranked by total searches. Searches represent the total number of queries conducted at the Provider.

Table 1: Top 10 Search Providers for May 2006, Ranked by Searches (U.S.) Please view in a fixed-width font such as Courier.

+-----------------------+-----------+------------+-------------------+ | Provider | Searches | YOY Growth | Share of Searches | | | (000) | | | +-----------------------+-----------+------------+-------------------+ | Google Search | 2,783,169 | 32% | 49.1% | | Yahoo! Search | 1,298,915 | 34% | 22.9% | | MSN Search | 600,820 | 42% | 10.6% | | AOL Search | 363,431 | N/A | 6.4% | | Ask.com Search | 146,585 | 69% | 2.6% | | My Way Search | 129,270 | 67% | 2.3% | | iWon Search | 32,257 | 53% | 0.6% | | Dogpile.com Search | 29,416 | -25% | 0.5% | | EarthLink Search | 27,488 | -1% | 0.5% | | SBC Yellow Pages | 24,513 | -21% | 0.4% | +-----------------------+-----------+------------+-------------------+

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search, June 2006

Note: Due to a methodology change, year-over-year growth for AOL Search is unavailable.

Example: An estimated 2.8 billion search queries were conducted at Google Search, representing 49 percent of all search queries conducted during the given time period.

About Nielsen//NetRatings

NetRatings, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTRT) delivers leading Internet media and market research solutions, marketed globally under the Nielsen//NetRatings brand. With high quality, technology-driven products and services, Nielsen//NetRatings is the global standard for Internet audience measurement and premier source for online advertising intelligence, enabling clients to make informed business decisions regarding their Internet and digital strategies. The Nielsen//NetRatings portfolio includes panel-based and site-centric Internet audience measurement services, online advertising intelligence, user lifestyle and demographic data, e-commerce and transaction metrics, and custom data, research and analysis. For more information, please visit www.nielsen-netratings.com

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:15 AM | Permalink

May 26, 2006

NetRatings Data: The Local Angle

Danny posted here about April Nielsen//NetRatings data reflecting that Google had crossed the 50% threshold in search market share. I want to point to another part of the release, which jumped out at me: the Internet driving people to local retailers ("big boxes" in this case).

All of the top five shopping queries according to Nielsen are ultimately local:

1. ?home depot? 2. ?walmart? 3. ?target? 4. ?sears? 5. ?best buy?

These are people who likely have done their research and are now looking for physical/local stores to buy what it is they want. This is striking because as much as the Internet is fueling the growth of e-commerce, it's driving offline shopping behavior. While this may be somewhat ?counterintuitive? for many people, this is the dominant shopping paradigm for the foreseeable future: online shopping, offline buying.

I've written a bit more about this on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:32 AM | Permalink

NetRatings: Google Tops 50 Percent Mark In US Web Searches

New stats (PDF) out from NetRatings show Google now handles half the web searches in the United States:

Search Engine April 2005 April 2006 Google 47% 50% Yahoo 22% 22% MSN 12% 11%

Need a longer view? See our NetRatings page for stats over time. I'll be getting the missing months posted soon, promise. I'm also planning a side-by-side against comScore figures. The latest of those released earlier this week show Google with a smaller chunk of the search pie but still higher than others. Here's a fast side-by-side:

April 2006 comScore NetRatings Google 43% 50% Yahoo 28% 22% MSN 13% 11%

Historical comScore figures are on our comScore page, fresh through March 2006.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:07 AM | Permalink

February 16, 2006

PPC Ad Impressions Grow 16% in 6 Months

A new Nielsen//NetRatings study shows that "sponsored link advertising impressions" grew from 55.4 billion to 64.3 billion or 16 percent during the past six months (August 2005 and January 2006). Google in August 2005 earned 36.2 billion, which increased to 41.1 billion in January 2006, a six-month increase of 14%. Yahoo percentage growth was larger than Google's, accounting for 19.2 billion in August of 2005 with an increase to 23.2 billion in January 2006 or a 21% increase in the past six-months. These figures include all of Google's and Yahoo's search partners and contextual networks. For the full release download the pdf.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 5:11 PM | Permalink

February 9, 2006

Searches Grow 55% & Google Gains 5.7% in Search Share

Late last month, Danny reported that the search share remained the "status quo." The stats from Nielsen//NetRatings shows that search growth overall has increased 55 percent from December 2004 to December 2005. And with that growth, Google gained in market share 5.7 points, whereas MSN dropped 3.1 points. However, Danny says "there's a danger in picking any two months and comparing" and even doesn't like to compare "same months from year to year."

Digging deeper into these figures, in December 2004, there was approximately 3.3 billion searches performed on search engines. In December 2005, we had nearly 5.1 billion searches, accounting for a 55 percent increase.

An other interesting note from the study was that although search volume grew 55 percent, Internet users did not grow at the same rate. Nielsen//NetRatings reports a rise of about three percent in the number of Internet users.

Google had 43.1 percent of search share in December 2004, which grew to 48.8 percent in December 2005, a 5.7 point increase.

Yahoo Search dropped 0.3 points from a 21.7 percent share in December 2004 to 21.4 percent December 2005. MSN Search lost 3.1 points from 14.0 percent share in to 10.9 for the same months.

If you review the average search share from Danny's previous entry, you can still see an increase in Google's share and a decrease for Yahoo and MSN. Danny reported Google at 46.7 percent, Yahoo at 22.0 percent, and MSN at 12.4 percent as the average monthly share for the period of January 2005 through November 2005.

The press release hasn't yet gone live on the NetRatings site but should here shortly. Here's what we received:

ONLINE SEARCHES GROW 55 PERCENT YEAR-OVER-YEAR TO NEARLY 5.1 BILLION SEARCHES IN DECEMBER 2005, ACCORDING TO NIELSEN//NETRATINGS

Google Sees Five-Point Gain in Search Share Rankings

NEW YORK- February 9, 2006 - Nielsen//NetRatings, a global leader in Internet media and market research, today reported that the total number of searches in the U.S. conducted across approximately 60 search engines grew 55 percent year-over-year to nearly 5.1 billion searches in December 2005 (see Table 1). There were 3.3 billion searches conducted via search engines in December 2004.

While the number of searches conducted online swelled, the number of people connecting to the Internet rose a mere three percent to 207 million people in the U.S.

?The double-digit increase in online search activity marks a significant milestone

in the evolution of Internet consumer behavior,? said Ken Cassar, senior director

of analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings. ?Online search is the primary tool most people rely on to do everyday research.?

Table 1. Growth in Total Searches, Dec 2004 vs. 2005 (U.S.) Please view in a fixed-width font such as Courier.

+------------------------+------------------------+-----------------+ | Dec-04 Searches (000) | Dec-05 Searches (000) | Percent Change | +------------------------+------------------------+-----------------+ | 3,279,770 | 5,069,377 | 55% | +------------------------+------------------------+-----------------+

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search, February 2006

Google rose nearly six percentage points to garner a 49 percent share of all searches in December 2005 from a year prior (see Table 2). Yahoo! Search and MSN Search experienced slight declines in their search share points.

Table 2. Top 3 Percentage Point Changes in Search Share Rankings (U.S.) Please view in a fixed-width font such as Courier.

+---------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+ | Search Engine | Dec-04 Search | Dec-05 Search | Change in | | | Share | Share | Percentage Points | +---------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+ | Google Search | 43.1% | 48.8% | 5.7 | | Yahoo! Search | 21.7% | 21.4% | -0.3 | | MSN Search | 14.0% | 10.9% | -3.1 | +---------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search, February 2006

The top three search engines all experienced double-digit growth year-over-year in December 2005. Google Search grew 75 percent to nearly 2.5 billion searches; Yahoo! Search rose 53 percent to nearly 1.1 billion searches, and MSN Search increased 20 percent to 553 million searches (see Table 3).

Table 3. Top 3 Search Engines' Growth in Searches (U.S.) Please view in a fixed-width font such as Courier.

+----------------+---------------------+------------------+-------------+ | Search Engine | Dec-04 Searches | Dec-05 Search | Growth (%) | | | (000) | (000) | | +----------------+---------------------+------------------+-------------+ | Google Search | 1,414,778 | 2,475,895 | 75% | | Yahoo! Search | 711,857 | 1,085,918 | 53% | | MSN Search | 460,377 | 553,476 | 20% | +----------------+---------------------+------------------+-------------+

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:57 AM | Permalink

February 3, 2006

A9's Low Popularity & Slower Growth

NetRatings sent out some Amazon stats in advance of their earnings report. Interesting to me was a breakout on A9. It shows growth from the fourth quarter of 2004 to the same period of 2005. However, growth from the third to the fourth quarter of 2005 is nowhere near as much as Amazon itself or the Amazon-owned Internet Movie Database. Traffic to both those sites is much higher than A9:

Monthly Unique Audience, In Millions, Q4 2004 Vs. Q4 2005

Site Q4 2004 Q4 2005 Change Amazon 37,323 43,183 16% IMDb 10,717 16,394 53% A9 792 1,369 73%

Monthly Unique Audience, In Millions, Q3 2004 Vs. Q4 2005

Site Q3 2005 Q4 2005 Change Amazon 36,339 43,183 19% IMDb 13,794 16,394 19% A9 1,282 1,369 7%

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:01 AM | Permalink

January 24, 2006

Latest NetRatings Stats Show Status Quo With Search Engines

I always warn not to worry much about month-to-month changes with search popularity stats. The now updated search engine popularity stats I've posted from Nielsen//NetRatings illustrate why. I've added data for the past four months, and it shows no real major changes over that period. Indeed, you can look at all the data going back to the beginning of last year. It shows things have pretty much not changed -- good news for Yahoo, which is happy to maintain the status quo.

Here's one of the two charts from my stats page, which shows the share of searches each search engine was estimated to have among US searchers in a particular month (the page explains more):

What do we see? Yahoo's gained a point and Google's lost one since the beginning of the year. AOL's gained two points and MSN's lost two over the same period.

However, there's a danger in picking any two months and comparing. What if I'd started the chart off in February, rather than January? Then Google stayed the same, Yahoo gained two points, AOL one, and MSN was the big loser with a three point loss.

Maybe you should compare the same months from year to year, November 2004 to November 2005, for example. I still have problems with that. Perhaps one search engine had a new feature or was doing a lot of promotions in a particular month. A month-to-month comparison would still be misleading, in that case.

My preference is to just look at the lines over time. They show me Yahoo's got very slight growth overall, while the rest have some slight decline overall. But none of these changes are particularly dramatic to say that anyone's winning anything, which is why I still feel it's status quo.

For the number inclined, here's the average monthly share for the period of January 2005 through November 2005:

  • Google: 46.7%
  • Yahoo: 22.0%
  • MSN: 12.4%
  • AOL: 5.8%

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:26 PM | Permalink

January 18, 2006

Nielsen//NetRatings Releases Top Engines (by share) and Top Search Terms for November 2005

Nielsen//NetRatings has just released (PDF) November 2005 search share rankings and top search terms.

Search Share Google continued in first place with 46% of all queries. Yahoo comes in second place with 23%. Here's the Top 5:

1. Google Search 46.3% Share 2,365,998,000 Searches

2. Yahoo Search 23.4% Share 1,194,519,000 Searches

3. MSN Search 11.4% 583,304,000 Searches

4. AOL Search 6.9% Share 350,899,000 Searches

5. My Way Search 2.5% Share 129,555,000 Searches Source: Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search, January 2006

"The top five players have held their respective positions for the past six months, Ken Cassar points out that this shows the "benefits of incumbency in the search arena." He's correct. It also shows that getting people to first try and then use on a regular basis something new is a major challenge in the search business. Yes, people are creatures of habit when it comes to search.

Top Search Terms The most popular search term in November was ebay, followed by Google and Yahoo.

Yes, once again we see people going to one engine to find another and/or would rather go to a search tool that enter a direct url (for example to ebay) into the browser. I pointed this out last month when Dogpile released their year-end list and Google and Yahoo were in the Top 5. Of course, it's worth noting that Dogpile results include results from Google and Yahoo.

Here's the Top 5

1. "ebay" 13,871,000 requests

2. "google" 13,301,000 requests

3. "yahoo" 7,997,000 requests

4. "mapquest" 7,431,000 requests

5. "yahoo.com" 6,528,000

If you combine requests for Yahoo and Yahoo.com, Yahoo "related" searches come in first with 14,525,000 requests.

"There are two types of online searchers that type a Web site?s URL into a search engine rather than into the browser?s address bar: Those inexperienced enough not to appreciate the difference between the two, and those that are so experienced they have become habituated to using the search engine as their portal to the Internet," said Ken Cassar, chief analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Whether this behavior is driven by ignorance or savvy, the end result is the same: The search engine is the focal point of the online experience for Internet users across the spectrum."

Yes, the "habituated" searcher. Yet another example of people being creatures of habit when it comes to search.

This news release (PDF) has some analysis along with tables containing the Top 10 engines by search share and Top Ten Search Terms.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:52 AM | Permalink

December 14, 2005

Nielsen: Search Queries Up, Google Has 48% of All Searches, Ask Jeeves Soars in Search Volume

The MediaWeek article: Nielsen: Google Dominates, Local Grows, reports that new October, Nielsen//NetRatings ratings numbers have been released. Here are some highlights:

+ In October, Nielsen//NetRatings recorded 5.1 billion total search queries That's up 15% from June. As Mike Shields writes, search providers are, "going after an expanding search pie."

+ Google accounted for nearly 2.5 billion searches in October, up 21 percent versus June activity. That's 48 percent share of all searches.

+ Yahoo, 22 percent of searches, up 16 percent in volume over the measured five month period

What provider had the biggest gain in overall search volume? Ask Jeeves, soon to be Ask. From the article: The search engine exhibiting the largest growth during the measuring period was AskJeeves, which saw its search queries soar by 77 percent, though Barry Diller's Web asset still claims less than 3 percent of the market.

Categories: + Searching for photo-related material up 37% since June + Local search up 19% since June + General web searches exceeded 4.5 million queries

You can find more numbers and commentary in this Nielsen//NetRatings news release (PDF).

From the release: The top four search players, Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL have maintained the same rankings in the past five months with little to no change in market share. Ask Jeeves leapt into the top five spot, garnering a 2.1 percent market share in August, edging out My Way Search, and has maintained its top five position in subsequent months. In October, Ask Jeeves held a search market share of 2.6 percent.

Btw, the release also has info on MSN and AOL. Both companies are not mentioned in the MediaWeek article.

+ MSN, 11.3% of searches, up 8% in past five months.

+ AOL, 7.2% of searches, up 3% in past five months.

Posted by Gary Price at 6:03 PM | Permalink

October 7, 2005

NetRatings: Average Searches Per Searcher Increases; Google Top Ranked In August 2005

Gavin O'Malley's, Media Post article: Search Activity Jumps In August, reports on some new search stats that were released by Nielsen//NetRatings yesterday.

Numbers

  • 5.04 billion searches in August across 65 engines, that's up 10% from the 4.6 billion searches in July
  • Average searches per web searcher grew to 42 in August, increase of 7% from July

Top Engines for August

  • Google--46% of all searches
  • Yahoo--23% of all searches
  • MSN--11% of all searches
  • AOL Search--8% of all searches
  • Ask Jeeves--2% of all searches

Posted by Gary Price at 10:19 AM | Permalink

August 23, 2005

NetRatings: Google Top Ranked In July 2005 Though Others Show Rises

I've posted the latest stats from NetRatings for search engine popularity for July 2005 on our Nielsen NetRatings Search Engine Ratings. As with comScore and Hitwise that I blogged earlier, it's Google that's top ranked among US services. The trend chart shows changes month-by-month over the past year. Google seen a slight dip over the past two months, with others especially AOL slight rises. As always, a trend is more a trend to me when you see it go on for months and months and months.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:34 PM | Permalink

August 15, 2005

Nielsen//NetRatings: 11% of Blog Readers use RSS

The results of a new study out today from Nielsen/NetRatings (PDF) shows that 11% of blog readers use RSS to access headlines and read blog content. I would have thought the number would have been somewhat higher amongst blog readers given the amount of attention RSS gets in the blogosphere. I would also be interested to learn how "blogs" were defined since more and more non-blog sites are now offering RSS feeds.

From the survey:

  • Nearly five percent of blog readers use feed aggregation software and more than six percent use a feed aggregating Web site to monitor RSS feeds from blogs.
  • The majority of respondents to the survey were less familiar with RSS feeds. Among the other respondents, 23 percent understood RSS but did not use it, while 66 percent either did not understand the technology or had never heard of it.

Use of RSS Feeds, June 2005 Survey Response Percent of Respondents I use feed aggregation software to monitor RSS feeds for blogs------4.9% I use a feed aggregating Web site to monitor RSS feeds for blogs----6.4% I?ve heard of RSS and know what it does but don?t use RSS feeds----23.0% I?ve heard of RSS but don?t know what it does----------------------15.7% I?ve never heard of RSS before today-------------------------------50.0%

Last month, a survey from the Pew Internet & American Life project showed that only 9% of those surveyed had a "good idea" of what the term RSS means.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:36 PM | Permalink

July 21, 2005

AOL & Ask Show Growth In Searches But Big Players Still Big

New quarterly statistics out from Nielsen//NetRatings show that AOL and Ask Jeeves had double-digit growth in the number of searches they handled, though the total number of searches handled by the major players left these other services far behind.

First the numbers:

Search Engine

Q1 2005 (millions)

Q2 2005 (millions)

Change (millions)

% Change

Google

5,737,097

6,088,343

351,246

6%

Yahoo!

2,576,473

2,798,123

221,650

9%

MSN

1,659,235

1,590,049

-69,186

-4%

AOL

562,816

646,641

83,825

15%

Ask

216,656

250,869

34,213

16%

Others

1,511,488

1,475,096

-36,392

-2%

Overall

12,263,765

12,849,121

585,356

5%

As you can see, the percent growth figures can be a bit misleading. Ask had growth of 16 percent -- which is great -- but the actual number of queries is tiny compared to Google. Ask had an increase of 34 million searches from the first and second quarter, while Google had an increase of 351 million. The Ask rise seems so significant because due to Ask's relatively small amount of traffic, it is significant to them.

NetRatings also released the latest monthly share figures for June 2005, showing what percentage of all searches done by home and work users in the US happen with each service:

June 2005

Searches (Millions)

% Share

Google

2,032,227

47%

Yahoo!

965,644

22%

MSN

540,687

12%

AOL

237,408

5%

My Way

78,821

2%

What's probably most interesting to me is that despite all the effort and attention put into search, MSN hit its lowest level since the beginning of this year. My Nielsen NetRatings Search Engine Ratings page has past figures that document this trend.

You're also probably scratching your head about My Way. Why's it on the June 2005 chart but not on the quarterly one further above. Good question. My guess is that it IS on the quarterly chart, with traffic for Ask Jeeves-owned My Way being combined with other Ask Jeeves-owned properties, such as Ask Jeeves itself. That's also odd because as my Nielsen NetRatings Search Engine Ratings page explains, normally My Way traffic is not counted as part of Ask Jeeves.

What's driven the quarterly growth? NetRatings speculates that it is vertical search, providing this breakdown:

Search Engine

Q1 2005 (Millions)

Q2 2005 (Millions)

Change (Millions)

% Change

Google Images

482,629

541,843

59,214

12%

Yahoo Images

92,403

143,643

51,240

55%

MSN Images

9,305

17,694

8,389

90%

AOL Images

5,718

9,935

4,217

74%

Ask News

450

637

187

42%

Me being me, I wondered if the vertical searches were really driving things as much as is assumed. So here's what I did. In the chart below, I took the total number of new queries spotted in the vertical categories shown above, then divided those by overall growth to see what chunk they formed of it.

Huh? OK, we're told that Google had 351 million new queries in Q2 of this year (April to June 2005). We're also told it had 59 million new queries specifically from Google Images. So 59/351 tells me 17 percent of Google's new queries were powered by image search growth. And that means while the vertical is important, suggesting it's the main driver of overall search growth may not be right. Here are the numbers:

Search Engine

Q2 Vertical Growth

Q2 Overall Growth

% From Vertical

Google

59,214

351,246

17%

Yahoo

51,240

221,650

23%

MSN

8,389

-69,186

-12%

AOL

4,217

83,825

5%

Ask

187

34,213

1%

Look at MSN, and you'll see a big problem. MSN saw an overall DECREASE in searches but an increase when you look just at image search. So in MSN's case, having the vertical does seem to have been important, though not for growth but rather stemming losses.

And I think that's an important lesson you'll see going forward. It's always been hard to go after the established players on plain old search. But roll out an important vertical, and you might attract people who wouldn't have thought of you the first time. It's not even really a new lesson. We've long had vertical search used in this fashion but it its going through a new resurgence.

More details can be found directly from NetRatings in their press release (PDF format).

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:30 AM | Permalink

June 28, 2005

NetRatings: Google Most Popular In May, But Trend Is No Real Trends So Far

Concluding what's turned into a series of the latest search popularity ratings today (see also WebSideStory, Hitwise), new stats now posted from Nielsen//NetRatings show that ... wait for it ... Google was the most popular search engine last month, based on the percentages of searches performed there by those within the US.

No surprise. Google was tops last month, and the month before, and the month before. What's more interesting is the chart at the bottom of the NetRatings stats page I've updated. It gives you the trend for Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL since the beginning of the year and underscores why it's a bad idea to get excited over month-to-month changes.

Google's cracked the 48 percent mark! Yes, this month. But it was as low as 46 percent of all searches in February. Overall, it's stayed relatively consistent at the 47 percent range. That's the trend -- relatively consistency.

Yahoo's had little movements, with a downswing in May. Oh no! But it's tiny, and Yahoo's had upswings as well. Overall, Yahoo's "trend" is to be solid around the 21 percent mark.

MSN had all that excitement from some when it showed a boost in February. The ads are working! Microsoft is on the path to victory! Instead, the trend is that MSN has returned to the 12 percent range it had before the campaign. Trend? The temporary boost seems just that, a temporary one so far.

Meanwhile, there's AOL. It just pushed into the 5 percent range. Question is, will the next few months see this as a new level for the service, or will it slip back into 4 percent territory.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:14 PM | Permalink

April 26, 2005

The Search Landscape: The View from 30,000 Feet

A popular notion says that Google dominates the web search arena, but does it really? It depends on who you ask. The company is clearly a powerhouse, but other players are also strong, and really shine when you narrow the view to consider specific regions or countries, the preferences of particular demographic groups and other measurement factors.

In today's SearchDay article, Viewing the Search Landscape, guest writer Andrew Goodman offers his perspective on a panel at a recent Search Engine Strategies conference where representatives from the major traffic measurement agencies weighed on what's really happening out there in the world of web search.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 6:00 AM | Permalink

April 22, 2005

NetRatings Search Popularity Stats For March 2005 & MSN's Share

I've posted new search engine popularity statistics from NetRatings for March 2005, and you can now view a line chart showing the past three months that underscore how little has shifted in the search landscape.

It's always good to remember with these type of figures that trends typically don't emerge until several months have gone by. Case in point was all the hoopla last month, when MSN had a small 1.4 share rise from 12.8 percent in January to 14.2 percent in February.

A one month shift is nothing. You want to see a pattern grow over three, four or more months before shouting trend. Nevertheless, there was quite a bit of speculation on that one month change because of all the ad spending that MSN is now doing.

Shouldn't the service's big ad campaign have spiked it even higher? Perhaps. But perhaps the ad campaign did nothing at all, with interest actually spiked because of general press reports about MSN.

In whatever case, MSN has dipped down to 13.6 percent, with Google seeming to benefit from that loss. Panic time? Ads not working? Best to give it a few more months and wonder about other factors, before drawing too many heavy conclusions.

Here are some articles about the MSN rise from last month, with ample quotes and observations from MSN on how it plans to continue:

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:04 AM | Permalink

March 22, 2005

NetRatings Search Popularity & Loyalty Figures For Jan. 2005

I've posted new, improved search-specific stats from NetRatings painting a picture of search popularity in the US for January 2005. In the past, NetRatings didn't provide stats based on search volume, which I feel provides a better picture of which search engines are being used the most. Now those stats are available. For last January, they show what you'd probably expect. Google is in the lead, followed by Yahoo, then MSN and AOL. Check them out here: Nielsen NetRatings Search Engine Ratings. For Search Engine Watch members, I've also done a longer analysis of the figures, comparing them to some recent comScore ones. I also looked at some some interesting "crossover" or "search loyalty" statistics that NetRatings released (link to PDF file) earlier this month. That members article is here: NetRatings Search Popularity & Loyalty Figures.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:39 AM | Permalink

February 25, 2005

Dec. 2004 Top 20 Search Engines In UK

NetRatings has released a list of the top 20 search engines in the UK for December 2004, ranked in order of the number of unique searchers they had. Google comes first, followed by Yahoo, then Ask Jeeves.

The report also provides data on clickthrough per searcher, suggesting that the most popular search engine in terms of number of searchers isn't necessarily the most popular in terms of clickthrough to web sites.

For example, AltaVista was ranked 15th in terms for number of unique searchers. However, in terms of clickthrough per searcher, it was ranked third. Each unique searchers at AltaVista clicked 13.6 times in the month, compared to say 4.8 clicks per month at Lycos.

The idea is that you want to target both a search engine with traffic and high clickthrough, because if there aren't many clickthroughs, that traffic won't translate into visitors for you.

I guess. I find the data a bit confusing, however -- and wish I had time to analyze it more closely. I don't, but I'll at least post some of the questions I'm wondering.

  • Clicks per searcher might be the wrong metric. Any unique searcher in a given month might do a number of different searches. One search might come up with the "right" answer and generate a single clickthrough. So low number of clicks -- but not an issue for the site that got the traffic.  
  • Another search might generate several different possible answers, causing a person to click, come back to the search results, click again and so on. So clickthrough is high, but that doesn't matter to the sites that only got brief visits, because perhaps the search engine wasn't putting up the best results.  
  • A better metric might be clickthroughs per search session. In any given search session, how many clickthroughs happened. Only a few might indicate a better degree of accuracy. Then again, perhaps not. High clickthrough could indicate a skew of people for a particular search engine who like to explore various options.

In the end, the stats are interesting, but most marketers will still probably find it useful mainly to see which search engines are ranked tops in the UK by unique searchers. Even better would have been ranking by volume of search.

The report (in PDF format) is here. NetImperative has coverage here: Bigger not always better for search.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:13 PM | Permalink

February 11, 2005

Fresh comScore & NetRatings Stats Posted

I've updated the long-standing comScore Media Metrix Search Engine Ratings and Nielsen NetRatings Search Engine Ratings pages I maintain with figures that show search engine popularity for December 2004, the latest available.

The comScore figures show Google still with the largest slice of the search pie though Yahoo is just barely behind. But Google's share is larger when you factor in the searches at AOL that it powers. Also please note that technically, MSN wasn't providing its own results that month, as shown on the provider pie. But it's better to show it that way and avoid confusion with some who will view it, given that MSN is now a provider.

The NetRatings figures give you a look at more than just the very top search engines, instead stretching to the top 15. But some of those will probably have some of you scratching your head. Information.com is more popular than Netscape Search? But note the average search time figures also shown. They indicate places people might go and stay, as opposed to wind up on somehow and depart quickly.

The NetRatings figures also don't show the entire share of search but as explain on that page simply reflect "audience reach," whether someone simply did even one search at the search engine in a given month.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:52 PM | Permalink

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