According to our source, comScore will report that both Google and Bing have made small, incremental gains since last month and seen modest growth since last year. One or both are growing, it appears, at Yahoo’s expense. AOL and Ask are basically flat.

Yahoo is at its lowest point to date and has recorded its eighth straight monthly decline in terms of market share. Our source believes that Yahoo’s share could sink quite a bit lower over time.

Here’s the comScore share breakdown for the past two months compared with a year ago:

Data source: comScore (5/12)

These data do not include mobile search query volumes. We know that many publishers are seeing a range of between 15 percent and 25 percent of their queries now coming from mobile devices. In some categories the percentages are much higher: restaurants for example where 40 percent or even 50 percent of traffic is now from mobile.

Google is far and away the dominant provider of browser-based mobile search query volume in the US.

Postscript: Now the official comScore numbers are out and they’re consistent with what we posted above.

Mobile vs. PC Local Search Volumes (BIA/Kelsey Forecast)

Source: BIA/Kelsey (2012)

In some categories such as restaurants and travel, mobile searches represent 15 – 20 percent or more of overall query volumes. There can be no dispute that mobile search is now a huge phenomenon. But will it eclipse PC local search query volume in three years?

Let’s think out loud a bit, shall we?

50 Billion Local Queries on the PC

Using the Google 20 percent figure as a guide we can estimate that in March there were approximately 3.7 billion local searches on the PC in the US. In the absence of significant month over month growth that would translate into roughly 44 billion annual local queries coming through US search engines on the PC. But let’s assume modest local query growth and say there will be something on the order of 50 billion local queries on search engines in the US in 2012. (The number could be higher of course.)

Now, how many local-mobile search queries are there?

Answering that question depends on whether we include app-based local search (e.g., Yelp, Foursquare, yellow pages apps, Urbanspoon, etc.). Data from comScore, Localeze and 15 Miles finds that half of US mobile consumers (survey respondents) say they use apps at least some of the time for local search. However, we don’t know the frequency or the volume of in-app search because no one is really tracking those numbers today.

Let’s limit the definition of “mobile search” to browser based search through one of the major US search engines. However right now Google represents about 95 percent of the total “mobile search” market in the US.

12 Billion Local Queries on Smartphones

If there are roughly 125 million smartphone owners in the US (50 percent of 250 million mobile subscribers) and a large number of smartphone owners do an average 20 mobile searches per month, then there are something like 30 billion mobile searches annually right now in the US. (Let’s leave out tablets of this discussion.) If 40 percent of that overall mobile search volume is local, that would mean roughly 12 billion annual local searches on mobile devices. (This number may be slightly inflated today.)

We can assume growth in smartphone penetration and some growth in per-person mobile search query volume — though this assumption is a wild card for several reasons. It also may be a bit risky to assume that the percentage of overall mobile search that is local will continue to climb significantly, though it could reach 50 percent (which is what Microsoft says it is today on Bing).

Let’s assume smartphone penetration reaches 75 percent (say 187 million people) and each person does 40 mobile searches per month (doubling our per-person monthly query assumption). That translates into 90 billion annual mobile queries. If the local percentage of mobile search volume grows to 50 percent, we’d have 45 billion annual local-mobile search queries.

That event would get us pretty close to PC-mobile local search parity, if there weren’t dramatic PC local search growth. However a number of factual assumptions must come to pass. And the future is not guaranteed to look like the past.

What If the Paradigm Shifts?

The proliferation of mobile apps (whether native or HTML5) combined with the rise of Siri and other voice assistants could mean that browser-based mobile search doesn’t grow much over time. Google has cited figures of 130 percent year over year mobile search growth. But there are reasons to believe that the current PC search model on the smartphone small screen will be supplanted, at least to some degree in the relatively near future.

More than a couple of years out it all starts to get very speculative, since mobile is evolving so rapidly. However, regardless of whether the BIA forecast comes true in three years — I don’t think it can without including in-app search volumes — it’s certainly directionally accurate. And one day in the relatively near future it’s clear that people will be using mobile devices to find local information as much or more than their laptops and desktop PCs.

The “slashtags” search engine has already seen a 337 percent gain in unique visitors this year. That’s as of yesterday (Monday) afternoon, and there are still two weeks left in the month.

Blekko shared the chart below from its internal analytics, showing a gain in unique IPs visiting the site from 1.58 million in December to 5.33 million so far in April.

Blekko saw visits from 3.71 million unique IPs in March, the most recent full-month count that’s available. That’s a 645 percent spike compared to March 2011.

On the Blekko blog yesterday, CEO Rich Skrenta posted traffic charts from Experian Hitwise and Compete, both of which also show dramatic traffic increases in recent weeks (Hitwise) and months (Compete).

For the sake of completeness, we asked comScore if it’s also seeing the same trend for Blekko. Although the numbers are different, the trend is pretty much exactly the same — a dramatic rise in traffic beginning in January, 2012. (ComScore’s unique visitor count for March is a little less than half of the unique IP count on Blekko’s internal chart above, but comScore is counting U.S.-only visits.)

According to comScore’s numbers, Blekko is now getting about triple the traffic of fellow underdog search engine DuckDuckGo, which has also seen big gains of its own in user activity.

Why Is Blekko Growing So Quickly?

Blekko CEO Rich Skrenta tells us via email that he thinks there are a handful of reasons for Blekko’s traffic spike this year:

1. Improved index quality. Days before Christmas, Blekko announced a “major upgrade” that included a bigger index that improved its long-tail search results.
2. Dissatisfaction with Google.
3. Distribution partnerships. Skrenta is referring things like Blekko’s recent deal with security software maker Lavasoft.
4. Trade show and convention appearances. Blekko has been visible at numerous recent events, from shows like SXSW, Blogworld Expo and our own SMX West conference to many librarian-focused events like the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting and the Internet Librarian Conference.
5. The demise of Yahoo Site Explorer. Since Yahoo Site Explorer closed last November, Skrenta says SEOs have been “all over” Blekko’s SEO tools and data.

Google continues to have a near death-grip on search engine market share in the U.S., but the growth that Blekko — and DuckDuckGo, too — is seeing in recent months means that at least some searchers like to keep their options open. (And, much like the rumors of a Facebook search engine, the growth of Blekko and other search engines is also a Good Thing for Google as it deals with antitrust/monopoly concerns.)

Search Engine market share has not changed much between the various search engines:

• Google’s share of searches in March was 66.4%, compared with 66.4% in February 2012 and 65.7% in March 2011.
• Yahoo’s share of searches in March was 13.7%, compared with 13.8% in February 2012 and 15.7% in March 2011.
• Bing’s share of searches in March was 15.3%, compared with 15.3% in February 2012 and 13.9% in March 2011.
• AOL’s share of searches in March was 1.6%, compared with 1.5% in February 2012 and 1.6% in March 2011.
• Ask’s share of searches in March was 3.0%, compared with 3.0% in February 2012 and 3.1% in March 2011.

In terms of search query growth and decline between March 2011 to March 2012:

• Google’s queries increased 10% y/y in March.
• Yahoo’s queries decreased 5% y/y in March.
• Bing’s queries increased 19% y/y in March.
• AOL’s queries increased 5% y/y in March.
• Ask.com’s queries increased 7% y/y in March.

Mobile search queries are not included in this report.

The data should be published on comScore’s press releases page shortly.

Related Entries:

• Bing And Google Gain Market Share While Yahoo Drops
• Bing Now A Full Point Ahead Of Yahoo In Search Share — comScore
• December “Explicit” Search Numbers: Bing Now Ahead Of Yahoo
• Bing, Yahoo Now Neck & Neck In US Search Market Share
• Search Engine Market Share Remains Steady In October, comScore Says

Keeping in mind this isn’t yet the official comScore release, the following are the numbers for February:

• Google: 66.4 percent (vs. 65.4 percent a year ago)
• Bing:  15.3 percent (vs. 13.6 percent a year ago)
• Yahoo: 13.8 percent (vs. 16.1 percent a year ago)
• Ask: 3 percent (vs. 3.2 percent a year ago)
• AOL: 1.5 percent (vs. 1.7 percent a year ago)

The combined search alliance share is now 29.1 percent, essentially flat and where it has been for many months. However Yahoo’s decline since last year at this time has been significant.

For comparison, here are the official comScore numbers from January, 2012:

The data above do not reflect mobile search market share, which accounts for between 15 percent and 30 percent of query volume in some categories. There, Google is almost totally dominant.

US mobile search market share

Source: StatCounter

Postscript: This afternoon comScore published the official search market share figures for February. They’re consistent with what we presented above:

In this article I want to focus on a single finding: 49 percent of smartphone and tablet owners are using apps to find local information. On one level this is unremarkable and makes sense; apps are popular and there are lots of apps that use location in one way or another.

We know from Google that 40 percent of browser-based mobile search has a local or offline intent. That already represents significant query volume. But what if half of the local search query volume on mobile devices (and tablets) goes through apps?

That’s not exactly what the survey data show, but it’s a very logical and plausible inference.

We don’t know the total volume of app-based search or local search because nobody is tracking that right now in the same way that PC query volume is tracked. Yet if half of mobile users in the US (including tablets for this discussion) use apps for local lookups and research it stands to reason that perhaps half their queries go through apps vs the browser (read: Google).

Source: comScore, Localeze, 15 Miles

The absolute volume of local-mobile queries could be greater in apps than the browser. This is because smartphone and tablet users (in particular) are typically more active and engaged than PC users as a general matter. The chart above shows that tablet owners conduct (on a percentage basis) more daily and weekly local searches than smartphone and PC owners.

This is “informed speculation” on my part, but I would imagine that if half of mobile consumers are using apps for local search then at least half of local search query volume is happening inside those apps. In terms of which apps smartphone and tablet owners are using for local searches and lookups, comScore found the following:

Source: comScore, Localeze, 15 Miles

My understanding is that this question involved a predetermined list of choices so it does not reflect all apps being used by consumers for local search. For example, 20 million people are using Foursquare but it’s not represented here (unless reflected in “other”).

The top app being used for local search is Google Maps according to the study. However, Yahoo, Mapquest, Bing and others are not that far behind and apparently in a more competitive position vs. their relative positions in search on the PC. Indeed, there are some very interesting implications for Google if Google Maps were to be replaced by an Apple mapping product at some point.

Google gained share vs. last month. However, the big news is that Bing is now firmly ahead of Yahoo in “explicit core search.” But using comScore’s expanded “total core search” definition Yahoo remains ahead of Bing.

Below are the official numbers; first explicit core search (no slideshows) and then total core search (including so-called “contextual search”):

Yahoo and Bing have now effectively changed places. Bing has taken share from Yahoo, while Google has been largely unaffected. Accordingly, the “search alliance” share of queries remains essentially flat at 29 percent.

Based on underlying comScore data, the report analyzes visits to the top five websites in several verticals: Media, Retail, Travel, Auto, Finance and Health. It doesn’t discuss the impact or relative position of Facebook at all, possibly because Facebook is not yet a public company.

Mahaney points out that Google’s retention of the position of top traffic referrer is an accomplishment in a marketplace that is so “fluid” and intensely competitive.

The report has a number of key findings, which I’ve distilled here:

Google ranked as the #1 source of traffic for 23 of the top 30 Websites. “By contrast, the #2 (Yahoo!) and #3 (Microsoft) influencers accounted for 11 percent and 6 percent of traffic to the top 30 Websites.”

Google’s “influence is [very slowly] slipping”: Mahaney said that “Google has gone from delivering 17 percent of all the traffic to the top 30 Websites in 2010 and 2011 to 16 percent in 2012.” The one vertical studied in which Google’s influence has waned considerably is Heath (see chart above).

Yahoo and Microsoft’s traffic is flat: the report said that “Yahoo!’s and Microsoft’s share of traffic “has remained essentially flat from 2010 to 2012.” This is regarded as a surprise on both counts.

Mahaney said that flat traffic is positive for Yahoo given the market’s perception of the company/site as a “deteriorating asset.” By contrast this is “arguably something of a negative surprise [for Microsoft] . . . given signs of Bing Search market share gains.”

Those figures made it appear that Google had gained share at Bing’s expense. It was Yahoo that lost share, however. Below are the official comScore “explicit core search” numbers, released earlier today:

I was told by earlier today that the error was comScore’s. However comScore says that the error came from the third party that published the numbers yesterday. The more expansive “total core search” data (with slideshows) still shows Yahoo ahead of Bing.

The numbers above don’t include mobile search query volumes, which are now as much as 20 percent (or more) in some categories and growing rapidly. Below are StatCounter data reflecting mobile (browser) search market share in the US.

Source: StatCounter

Google is much more dominant in mobile than on the PC (in terms of browser-based queries). However there’s considerable “search” volume that goes through smartphone apps that isn’t being captured in the aggregate by comScore or anyone else for that matter.

Recently comScore reported that for the first time more people are using apps than the mobile browser.

Android handsets now represent nearly 47 percent of the US smartphone market, while the iPhone is just under 30 percent. The comScore data doesn’t reflect iPod Touch or iPad devices.

The firm also said that 39 percent of the US mobile population owned smartphones. This stands in contrast to Nielsen’s 44 percent estimate, which puts the actual number at more than 100 million people.

What’s perhaps most interesting, however, about the data in the report is the fact that it shows (I believe for the first time) more people used apps than used the mobile browser.