For the second time this week data has been released indicating Google’s share of the search market has declined. Many market analysts have associated Google’s slight stock dips with these reports, so we felt it was prudent to make our data available to confirm or deny Google’s performance.

In contrast to the two reports issued by comScore and Hitwise, Compete’s data indicates that Google’s market share actually increased by ½ a percent. (I just put in a “call” to my Etrade account to cash in on the market’s reaction!)

Why the discrepancy between the three reports? comScore, Hitwise and Compete all leverage different data sources and apply different methodologies to their data sets. In terms of Compete, our report is derived from a comprehensive database of the daily web search queries of 2M opt-in U.S. consumers across the top 19* search engines. Compete’s market share report is based on the volume of ‘web searches’ conducted on each property - which excludes dedicated image, video and news searches.

*Why 19 search engines and not 20? It actually doesn’t matter since the top 5 account for 98% of the market.

It is possible the contrasting reports are grouping all search types together. Compete market share data is based on ‘web searches’ because that’s where the majority of sponsored advertising dollars are derived. Like a famous artist once said, “if it don’t make dollars then it don’t make sense.”

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