Top Five Search Engines: How Big is Google’s Lead?
Our last blog post weighed the new features some search engines are offering against the trusted results users receive from others – namely, Google. New data may answer the question posed as to how long it will take - if any length of time is long enough – for new features from other search engines to draw loyal searchers away from Google. But from a perspective of searcher loyalty, is Google really the clear winner?
As has been the case for quite a while, Google is the search engine that accounts for the vast majority of online searches. The most recent statistic from Nielsen researchers says that Google was used for 56% of all online searches in December. This number, of course, means that Google accounted for more searches than all of the other search engines combined. Yahoo was in second place, trailing far behind with only 17.7% of searches. Ask.com rounded out the top five search engines with only 2% of searches.
However, while Google having the majority of searches isn’t really news, the most recent data suggests something about loyalty. Google users returned to perform 36 searches in December. For Yahoo, the second most popular engine, users returned 22 times to search. MSN, while in third place, accounting for just 13% of online searches, had searchers return 31 times during December – almost the same amount of return searches as Google.
Obviously, if you’re choosing one search engine to target, for paid or non-paid search, Google will give you the widest exposure. From the volume of users using the site, they are clearly in the lead, as each month statistics show them in first place. But you might not want to be too quick to rule out the other engines. They may have fewer searchers, but those searchers are almost as loyal as Google searchers - coming back again and again for more information.
