September Search Market Share: Query Volume Leaps on Back-to-School and Economic Concerns, Google Leads Growth
Written by Jeremy Crane (contact - e-mail) -- October 20th, 2008 | Share - Save - E-mailAh, September. When leaves begin to turn, school kids doff their backpacks, the economy tanks and Google sets a new record for search market share and hits the 2nd greatest month/month query volume growth in the past 13 months.
Interestingly, most of the other search engines also grew query volume, demonstrating the magnitude of students and concerned investors returning to their web browsers. MSN/Live was the only search engine that lost query volume in September, and with Club Live factored in, that loss actually became a dive.
Google continued to impress, hitting 40.3% year/year query growth, same as last month, while most competitors took big hits compared to last year. Yahoo! slipped 6.1% versus September, 2007. MSN/Live fell 12.8% or, if you count Club Live, only 5.8%. And AOL lost a whopping 18.2% of queries versus 13 months ago.
The only bright spot, other than the Google sun, was Ask, which inched 1.2% compared to September, 2007. Perhaps that “The Algorithm killed Jeeves.” advertising campaign actually did help retain Ask searchers.
The major takeaways for September, 2008 (excluding Club Live from the market)….
- Google sets new record of 70.4% share on 5.6% m-o-m query volume surge
- Yahoo! dips to 19.4% market share on essentially flat 0.2% m-o-m query volume change
- Windows Live Search falls to 6.0% market share (with Club Live, it lands at 8.8%, though m-o-m query volume still declines)
- Ask maintains 2.7% share on a slight increase of 2.2% m-o-m query volume
- AOL continues to hold on with 1.1% share and 3.3% m-o-m query growth
- Next up … the tricks and treats of Halloween and Election Season!
If you want to get your hands on the actual data in this post and a lot more don’t forget to check out Compete’s Data Hub.
*Search market share includes web search only for the Adult US Online Population and is calculated based on unique queries within each session during the given month.
Did you like that post? You'll love these.
- October Search Market Share: Query Volume Breaks 10b Mark, Windows Live Search Edges Ahead
- August Search Market Share Update: Rivals Cede to Google’s Lead
- December Search Market Share: Holiday Bargain Hunting Supercharges Search, Closes a Year of Google Gains
- January Search Market Share: Google share slows while query volume stays strong on Inauguration and Super Bowl searches
- July Search Market Share Update: Everyone Dips But Google
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October 20th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I just can’t believe how powerful and/or stoppable Google can be. The started first, and they have also keep up with what they do best. Being first in a race doesn’t guarantee you anything; however, the famous search engine knew what was coming on worked hard to deliver quality search queries and tools to make our lives easy. “Live” is only up there because of Microsoft; it is a somewhat obliged service that, if you don’t think outside the Microsoft box, you will use forever. And forever means passing the great opportunities that Google has for all of us! Ask and the other guys are just way behind the race. However, they don’t have the monopoly “Minisoft” has–makes them a little better for me.
Google rules and I couldn’t be happier. GREAT post! :-)
k. Osle
October 21st, 2008 at 10:29 am
Wouldn’t the elections also factor in as a cause for a surge in queries? Everyday there’s so much of an information overload, its impossible to say what’s the truth is about the daily tit-for-tat without doing some search for it.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:38 am
Well Ling, you might be right about doing some search first. However, as far as I know, Google has always been on top no matter what. So, why the search? Compete’s numbers are accurate–whether they come due to the elections or not. In fact, aren’t those numbers worldwide user’s statistics? I don’t think Nicaraguans, or Nigerians, or Belgians, or Chileans, or Croatians are Google-ing to know Obama’s past, etc. Perhaps they are to some degree.
Moreover, I would like to know what the error gap of Compete.com, if any, is.
k. Osle
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:25 am
The numbers look reasonable for USA but for Israel we need to take a few more search engines that gets lots of traffic.
the numbers will stay high or will be higher only if Google continue with their big afford for relevancy and targeted search results.
Again we can see how bad is for Yahoo when decided not to take Microsoft offer.
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