According to the latest research from Nielsen//NetRatings, Google achieved a 49.4% market share of all web searches carried out this month with a staggering 2.67 billion searches being performed on the search engine. This reinforces the company's position at the top of the search tree as the web's favourite search engine. To top it off, the figure reported this month highlights Google's annual growth at a staggering 31%.
Yahoo! weighed in second with 23% of the total searches, providing 1.24 billion searches this month. In comparison to Google this is not even half the amount, however a closer look at the statistics will show that although they posses only 23% of searches carried out, Yahoo! itself reported growth just below Google with a reported 29% annually. Not too shabby for the search engine that is allegedly struggling to keep up with Google and even had the opportunity to buy them over before they went stratospheric. It seems there really isn't much between the search giants in terms of year-on-year growth.
AOL and MSN also reported growth from last year with 3% each, delivering 6.9% and 10.3% of searches last month respectively.
As the industry develops it is great to see continued growth within a strong and flourishing market place. The smaller engines seem to be developing quickly with the new and improved Ask.com and My Way demonstrating huge growth, 66% and 51%, while only providing an overall 2 % of searches. With growth figures like that surely it can't be too long before we start to see some changes in search engine markets share.
These statistics are impressive but while the companies continue to grow, those following the stock market may have been seeing different trends with regards to the big boys. It is known that feelings have become a little uneasy within the ranks of Yahoo! investors who feel the engine may have missed the boat with regards to the community space it is pursuing, and is continuing to lag behind Google in the search playing field. Delays with the launch of the new Yahoo! advertising software has added to the restless investors concerns. This new software was designed to finally establish Yahoo! advertising, which seems problematic for those eagerly awaiting its launch while the Google AdWords steam train continues to dominate the market.
With Google's dominance of the search market can Yahoo! pull it back and calm investors who expect more growth from the search engine despite Yahoo! meeting analyst's predictions? This reporter would have to conclude that the only answer to that would be: watch...this...space!
