Did Bing Leapfrog Yahoo? Not Exactly

Jun 5, 2009 at 3:42pm ET by Greg Sterling

We saw the same headline, based on data issued by StatCounter from Thursday. These data reportedly show that yesterday the share of searches went like this:

Google: 71.47 percent
Bing: 16.28 percent
Yahoo: 10.22 percent

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On a global basis the company said it saw a similar trend:

Google: 87.62 percent
Bing: 5.62 percent
Yahoo: 5.13 percent

To get a reality check on these numbers and discover whether Bing had in fact surpassed Yahoo we reached out to Hitwise, Nielsen, comScore and Compete. We’re still waiting to get data or updates from these sources. But the charts and tables below reflect what we got quickly from Hitwise and Nielsen. I also include some public Compete data at the end.

Hitwise shows Yahoo still more than double Bing’s volume, but says that Bing’s visits “are up more than 14,500% since launch.”

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Nielsen shows a jump in Bing visits on June 1 but a decline thereafter. But look how the volume doubled in terms of audience (vs. Live Search) and how page views essentially tripled.

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The blue numbers are based on small samples and are less reliable.

Now here are the Compete public data comparing Google, Yahoo search (not Yahoo.com) and Bing (where the sample is too small to be helpful).

What these data collectively show — and we’ll update if/when we get more — is that Bing has received a potentially significant traffic bump compared to Live Search/MSN since launch and rollout of the marketing campaign on TV and online. However Bing has (so far) not surpassed Yahoo for the number two spot.

Update: Below is a more complete chart from Hitwise showing daily visits, with Live and MSN broken out. The chart appears to reflect that Bing has taken over for MSN and Live Search but that it has not gained any significant share according to Hitwise:

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Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land, and writes a personal blog Screenwerk, examining the broader world of media and advertising. He also posts at a Local Mobile Search, which is focused on the mobile Internet.

See more articles by Greg Sterling >

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5 COMMENTS ON Did Bing Leapfrog Yahoo? Not Exactly

Aaron Wall, June 5th, 2009 at 9:22 pm ET:
Premium member since 01/2009

The Compete.com public stats are from April and we are in June, so I don’t think that graph added much to a post about how bing did or did not grow over the last few days

BTW…great blow by blow review of Bing the other day Greg!

johnbeagle, June 6th, 2009 at 1:12 pm ET:
Premium member since 06/2009

Anyone can buy market share with $100 Million, the question is how long will it last. Bing.com is a good product, but it appears more retail oriented than google. Not a true broad research tool like Google.

Just like ASK.com, Bing.com will not be able to sustain market share or change search behavior of the masses.

Bing, bang, boom…

nickstamoulis, June 7th, 2009 at 9:16 pm ET:
Premium member since 06/2009

Even with a $100 million media budget I really don’t think Bing will attract long lasting users and really impact the Google and Yahoo! search market share dominance.

Marco, June 8th, 2009 at 1:20 am ET:

Why is there so much emotion (positive and negative) when a news story focuses on Microsoft? Let’s stick with the facts and how they might or might not impact us. In what ways is Bing better or worse than Google or Yahoo? How will (or should) Bing’s introduction affect marketers? Here are my newest thoughts on Bing, Yahoo!, and Google.

steveballmer, July 30th, 2009 at 9:23 pm ET:

I love it when an intricate, fiendish plan comes together!
Here is the She-CEO of Yahoo (Carol Bats) and myself signing the final agreement to give Microsoft control over the entire backend for Yahoo’s entire search! Yahoo will handle ads, marketing, hosting and all that kinda’ crap, but we will be the ones in charge of the main product, SEARCH! I was so happy as I was signing this that I almost … well, I was happy!
The She-CEO tried to put a good spin on Yahoo’s surrender, she said,
“We never really liked search anyways! We are letting these people handle that stuff while we pursue the cool stuff ya’know!”
Miss Bats, have you ever heard of a Puppet master?
Oh well, it has been a VERY good week here at Microsoft! Very good indeed!
(In the meanwhile, the man who opposed me at Yahoo (The Vagrant Yang) continues to marinate in his own feecees on the streets of Redmond!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ballmerrockz/3741197526/
Let him be a lesson to all!

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