No matter what the pundits say, the new Microsoft Cashback program along with some continued efforts on other marketing programs such as Club Live seem to have worked in June. MSN/Live search was the only major engine in June to post higher volumes of search queries. Everyone else, including the big dog Google, saw a decline. This seems even more impressive when you put this in the context of the overall search market. Overall search query volume in the market declined nearly 5% m-o-m, from 9.6 billion in May to 9.1 billion in June. Club Live search volume increased sharply, more than doubling the volume seen in May. In fact Club Live saw more search queries in June than Ask and AOL combined. Even if you exclude Club Live search queries Windows Live search volume ticked up nearly 3%, pushing MSN/Live market share back over the 8% mark. Rolling in Club Live MSN/Live market share jumped to a whopping 12.7% in June.

If you exclude Club Live search activity, Google actually pulled an interesting trick and managed to push market share still higher despite a sharp decline in volume. Google share increased to 69% despite a 4.2% decline in volume. The story for everyone else was pretty rough. Yahoo!, Ask and AOL market share all dipped to new lows on sharp volume declines.

The overview (excluding Club Live from the market) …

• Google share climbed to 69% despite a m-o-m decline in query volume
• Yahoo! dipped to a new low of 18.5% market share on continued query declines
• Windows Live Search was the only major engine to increase query volume moving market share up to 8.2%
• Ask share dipped slightly to 2.7% on a 10% m-o-m decline in volume
• AOL seems to be slipping away with market share holding just above 1% after continued query losses
• Maybe the Empire of the Northwest really doesn’t need Yahoo! search

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.

See I told you we wouldn’t stop! As it turns out people are paying attention to this search share stuff. On Monday we released our May Search Share numbers. As a result of some conversations we were having with Danny Sullivan in parallel we sent over our “rules” we use to mine the search data. Danny threw these up on his post reviewing our data and one savvy reader very quickly identified an issue with our rules. So, long story short, we have fixed our Yahoo! rules (and also reevaluated all the other engine rules in the process). Here’s the updated data based on adjusted rules.

The bottom line is that we now have Yahoo! share between 18.5% and 19% depending on your personal opinion of Club Live search queries.

What changed … trendwise nothing changed

• Google market share rose to new heights on solid volume gains
• Yahoo! search share held just above 19% after a slide month-over-month.
• Windows Live Search market share declined ½ ppt or nearly a whole point depending on whether you count Club Live queries … guess you have to take the good with the bad
• Ask dipped slightly but managed to hold just above the 3% mark on relatively minimal volume declines
• AOL dropped to a new low hovering just above the 1% mark

When is Compete going to stop adjusting their search market share methodology? To be perfectly honest … never. It’s what we do, analyze our data and strive to bring you the most accurate perspective on what consumers are doing online. Improvement sometimes means change… for the better. We recently did an exhaustive dive into our data over the past few months and adjusted our normalization process. This month’s search market share represents the new and improved numbers. You’ll notice a few changes to the numbers in January through April.

This month we decided to take a slightly different take on the Club Live search data … again. This time we’re presenting the data with and without Club Live lumped into the MSN/Live search numbers. While this inevitably impacts the overall volume perspective for MSN/Live, from a trend perspective it really doesn’t change much.

For the first time in a while Google was the one and only major web search engine to gain share in May. Overall web search queries grew about 2% from April to May while Google managed to grow volume by 3.6% m-o-m. Every other major engine saw a decline in both volume of queries and market share in May. This includes even MSN/Live where the losses are even more pronounced when you fold in the decline in Club Live generated queries.

On the bright side MSN/Live, in contrast to everyone except Google, has managed to improve from their position last year. MSN/Live market share in May ’08 was just slightly above year ago levels when you ignore Club Live. If you fold in Club Live there’s actually been fairly substantial growth in MSN/Live’s piece of the pie.

In a nutshell …

• Google market share rose to new heights on solid volume gains … next up 3 out of 4 web searches. Any bets on when we’ll see that.
• Despite a slight turn in April, Yahoo! began to slide once more, dipping to a new all time low market share
• Windows Live Search market share declined ½ ppt or nearly a whole point depending on whether you count Club Live queries … guess you have to take the good with the bad
• Ask dipped slightly but managed to hold just above the 3% mark on relatively minimal volume declines
• AOL dropped to a new low hovering just above the 1% mark

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.

Last month I posted the search market share numbers and pointed out that Club Live was generating substantial volume of search traffic. I also decided last month to exclude this volume of search queries based on some feedback from all of you. Well it seems there are a number of readers with a whole host of opinions on this matter. Unfortunately there are an equal number of you that agreed with my decision to pull it out and an equal number that said nope, a search is a search no matter how it’s generated. So what’s a third party web analytics guy to do? Well I’ve decided to try to appease everyone by including Club Live this month as a separate line item in our search market share report. Of course more likely than not this is just going to upset all of you. Oh well, we’ll see.

So here’s the year in review with club Live included (sort of).

April was actually the first month in a long while that we saw Yahoo! turn the corner and post a little gain in market share, albeit a small one. Yahoo! query volumes increased roughly 1.3% to push market share up to 14.8%. Maybe that Microhoo press got a lot of people yodeling after all.

Yahoo! gains did not come at the expense of Google. Google moved up a little over a point to roughly 69% market share (based on the new calculation). On the query volume side we saw Google volumes up nearly 45% from the same time last year.

On the Microsoft front things more or less held steady at the core and Club Live dropped off quite substantially. If you aggregate MSN, Windows Live, and Club Live searches you get roughly 11% market share for Microsoft. It’s fairly interesting to note that back in March Club Live generated search queries were larger than all queries posted on Ask. In April this volume dipped a bit but continued to outpace AOLs total search volume.

Both Ask and AOL slid a little market share wise in April.

• Google market share increased 1.1ppts on 0.4% m-o-m volume growth reaching new market share highs… no matter how you look at
• Yahoo! turned the corner with query volume up 1.3% m-o-m and market share back up to 14.8%
• Windows Live Search market share held steady at roughly 8.2% and 11% if you include Club Live
• Ask dipped to 3.5% market share on a 5% decline in search volumes
• AOL dropped to 1.4% on a 10% decline in volume

What do you all think? Club Live in or Club Live out?

*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.

As March search stats were published by the other major third party measurement companies over the past few weeks I started to get a little worried about our post from a couple of weeks ago. So we decided to go a little deeper into our data and as a result we did an extensive page level look at our search counts. Low and behold, it turns out we got bitten again by the Club Live bug. You would think that after the hubbub raised over Club Live last July we would have learned our lesson. Ever since that post last July we have been filtering out Club Live generated searches. It turns out that in February, MSN launched some new Club Live games that generated a solid amount of interest and skewed our March search market share report. So here I am a couple weeks later, after umpteen blogs have reposted our numbers and any number of bloggers have contrasted our results with the other third party measurement folks. I was hoping to get this out before Danny put together this great analysis, but alas it did not happen.

The new, updated, better than ever overview …

• Google market share increased 0.6ppts on 6% m-o-m volume growth reaching a new record market share
• Yahoo! continued the slide with market share dropping another ½ point to a new record low
• Windows Live Search market share inched up slightly as volume gains moved just slightly more than the market
• Ask also moved one step ahead of the market with market share inching forward
• AOL was the only major engine to post a decline with volume off 4% m-o-m
• It’s still not easy being in the third party reporting game

*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.

Things were ticking along nicely in the search world with not so much as a speed bump to be seen (set aside the market panic about Google’s paid click decline). Then along came March. Overall volume of search in March exploded, with total queries increasing over 6% and surpassing the 9 billion mark. That’s the biggest month-over-month increase in total search volume since July of last year. Interestingly enough this growth was not driven by our perennial search leader Google. In fact Google actually underperformed the market for the first time in 9 months and saw market share decline more than ½ a point. So where were the big gains?

Windows Live search kicked into high gear in March. Month-over-month Windows Live search queries increased 28.8%, pushing market share up almost 2ppts to just over 10%. Year-over-year, Windows Live search queries were up nearly 52%. Wow! My guess is that there are some dollars flowing out of Redmond that may be driving this. Maybe this April fool’s joke wasn’t a joke.

Then there was Google. Normally 5% month-over-month gains in search volumes would be stellar considering the average for the past year has been about 3%. Unfortunately in March that 5% growth meant Google lagged the market by about 1% and saw market share dip back under the 70% threshold to 69.4%. That’s the first time Google has lost market share in nine months. Oh boy … what will the markets do now?

In other news Yahoo! just can’t seem to self arrest the precipitous seven month slide they are on. Query volumes remained essentially flat with market share dipping again to a new record low of less than 15%. Yahoo! holds the dubious distinction amongst the top 5 search engines of being the only one to post a year-over-year decline in market share. Ask managed to ride the market wave holding share steady while AOL continued to slip into oblivion.

The overview …

• Google market share declined 0.6ppts despite 5% volume growth … the first decline in nine months
• Yahoo! continued the slide with market share dropping another point to a new record low and was the only engine with year-over-year share losses
• There’s something going down up in Redmond with Windows Live Search queries increasing nearly 30% month-over-month to push market share up almost 2ppts
• Ask moved with the market with volume increasing a little over 6% and no change to market share
• AOL was the only major engine to post a decline with volume off 10% month-over-month
• March madness apparently goes well beyond the b-ball court

*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.