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.

February is a critical time of the year for me personally. I have a lot on the line. Not only is February the month when Saint Valentine, the patron saint of Hallmark comes around, but it also happens to be the month of my wife’s birthday, and my mother’s birthday. Ouch! That is a lot of opportunity for trips to the dog house to come my way. Fortunately, I made it through the gauntlet relatively unscathed this year. In contrast to my own luck (read as: recurring annual reminders on cell phone), February was not too kind to the majority of the big search players. Of course February was kind once again to the biggest fish in the pond despite plenty of less than stellar market buzz.

Google officially crossed the 70% mark for the first time in February, according to Compete search market share numbers. 7 out of 10 web search queries performed in the US were performed on Google! The march up and to the right just doesn’t stop. Google’s search volumes have grown on average 3% per month since February last year, resulting in total year-over-year gains of over 50%. Obviously the story isn’t so rosy for the other players in the space.

The pain at Yahoo! is not limited to Jerry Yang coming to grips with potentially being the Silicon Valley subsidiary of the mighty Microsoft. February was another tough month for Yahoo! search as volumes declined nearly 7% from January and market share fell another point. MSN/Live search in turn dropped nearly 4% on the volume side resulting in a market share loss of about 0.3ppts. That’s a combined Microhoo market share loss of 1.3ppts since January 2008 and 7.1ppts since February 2007.

In other news Ask has thrown in the towel and decided to focus on working women. Then again maybe they aren’t … or are they? We’ll have to wait and see on that one, but one thing is for sure, despite February’s slight volume declines, Ask has been on the upswing over the past year. Ask query volumes were up nearly 56% since February 2007.

The overview …

• Google hits the big 70 for market share as the march goes on
• Yahoo! just can’t seem to escape the slippery slope dropping another point of market share
• MSN/Live seems to have caught some of the Yahoo! blues with market share off month-over-month and year-over-year
• Ask may or may not be for the overworked working woman, but they seem to be holding steady at large
• AOL ticked up in February on small gains and remains up year-over-year
• Is it any surprise that Saint Patrick comes to town with green beverages in tow right after Saint Valentine marches through?

* 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.

Unless you were sleeping under a rock you probably heard the big search news last week and I’m not talking about Google posting record search numbers again in January. It’s hard to look at the potentially merger of Yahoo! and Microsoft in the vacuum of search. The impact on the display advertising space is far more substantial but I would definitely be remiss not to mention a few points of interest on the search side. The combined search market share of Yahoo! and MSN/Live would come in roughly around the 25% mark among the US online population. You have to put this in perspective though. A year ago this merger would have meant a combined market share of nearly 32% vs. Google’s January 2006 share of 62%. With all the rumors about this merger being in the works for over a year, if not longer, you have to wonder who’s taking it on the chin by sitting on this one. It certainly isn’t Google. MSN/Live has definitely been gaining some ground in recent months but Yahoo! has yet to stem the receding tide. I don’t see the combined forces of these two reversing the current trend. Of course with the amount of buzz surrounding the potential merger and the coincident news regarding Google’s slide in the markets we may see some interesting numbers for February.

Oh yeah … by the way … Google’s market share reached a record level again in January.

Remember January 2006? It was a tough month for almost everyone other than the big dog. Well the good news about bad months in history is that the bar is lower for the future. January 2007 was much kinder to almost all of the major search engines. Relative to year ago market share levels everyone except Yahoo! was either above or at par in January 2007. Month-over-month there was actually very little movement in market share. Almost everyone moved with the market as overall search query volume increased 5% from December. Google was biggest gainer on market share, but Yahoo!, Ask, and AOL all posted volume gains in January. MSN/ Live volume essentially remained flat month-over-month. It will be interesting to see if the buzz drives any curiosity to Yahoo! or Live search in February.

The overview…

• Google gained volume and share posting a new record of nearly 69% market share
• Despite volume growth Yahoo! market share decreased slightly from December
• MSN/Live market share declined slightly with volume essentially remaining flat
• Ask market share ticked up once more on strong query volume growth
• AOL market share held steady despite strong volume growth
• The volume of RSS feeds in my feed reader with the word Microhoo! in the title has declined 5,000% since last Friday

* Search market share includes web search only and is calculated based on unique queries within each session during the given month.