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.”

Google will also retain dominant share of the search ad spend at 77.9%, up from 74.4% share in 2011. By 2014, Google’s search ad share is expected to grow to almost 80%. Microsoft is expected to grow from 7% share in 2011 to 8.7% in 2014, while Yahoo is expected to drop from 6.7% share in 2011 to only 3% in 2014.

The chart below shows overall search ad spend growth in dollars and as a percent increase overtime:

The chart below shows the overall search ad spend growth by search site:

The chart below shows search ad market share by search site over time:

Related Stories:

• Nearly 90% Of Twitter Users Follow Brands & Just 10.9% Of Users Find Promoted Tweets To Be Annoying
• Forecast: Google To Have Nearly 80% Of US Search Revenues In 2012
• Report: Search To Dominate Mobile Advertising By 2015
• EMarketer: Among Online Ads, Search To Gain Most New Dollars In 2011

These stats on search and phone calls, along with some general statistics about ad spending, measurement and ROI, are covered in this infographic from phone tracking service IfByPhone:

The question asked was: “If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into only one channel, what would it be?” The list of choices included SEO, paid search, mobile, social and traditional media. As you can see below SEO beats everything else by a mile.

What’s also interesting is how high “traditional media” ranked. That category would include newspapers, yellow pages, direct mail, traditional radio and so on. Newspapers and direct mail were the top traditional channels being used by this group of survey respondents.

However Facebook (not Facebook Ads) was the most common marketing tool, used by 70 percent of these SMB respondents. The question was, “Are you promoting your business with the following websites/services?”

The online survey was conducted in November. The sample came from MerchantCircle’s 1.6 million SMB member database. Just under 80 percent of respondents were businesses with fewer than four employees. The majority (63 percent) had annual marketing budgets of $2,500 or less.

There are additional findings about the use of social media, deals and mobile marketing that I discuss on my personal blog Screenwerk.

Audience targeting service Bluekai has assembled an infographic with these stats and more based on last year’s activity. Will the trends continue?

Want this infographic for yourself? You’ll find it here: The Future Of Online Holiday Shopping (note, the site is currently down).

Related Stories

• Holiday Season Countdown Kickoffs For Online Marketers
• 5 Holiday Shopping Tips For Search Marketers
• Data Shows Retailers Need To Pace Spend To Maximize Black Friday Performance
• Tips For Checking Your Holiday Retargeting List Twice
• Champagne Or Boone’s Farm? 3 Things That Will Determine Your Holiday Search Success
• Infographic: Tips To Avoid Shopping Cart Abandonment
• Infographic: Black Friday As Seen Through Foursquare Check-Ins

Other interesting stats?

• People tend to share the most around 9:30 Eastern Time (so we cunningly timed this post for just before that peak moment),
• 75% of clicks on a share will happen within the first day that the content is shared
• Most users click within 2 minutes of a share
• Copy-and-paste to share can be used up to 10 times more than those social sharing buttons out there

More from the infographic:

Want the infographic for yourself? It was posted last month to the AddThis blog, as part of its five year birthday celebration: Happy Birthday AddThis!

The full-size files were provided through the Clearspring Flickr account here (Clearspring owns AddThis).

Most Shared In 2011

AddThis also told us that among the most shared content in 2011 from its tracking were:

• MoveOn’s campaign to get people to all share a status update pushing against big companies and Wall Street greed
• A photo of a dog lying next to the casket of a US Navy Seal who was killed in Afghanistan

Social Sharing “Half-Life” & More Information

If those stats about how short-term sharing seems to be got you thinking, that’s beginning to be referred to as the “half-life” of a share, and we have some past articles with further information:

• Infographic: Half-Life Of Social Media Shares
• Why “Second Chance” Tweets Matter: After 3 Hours, Few Care About Socially Shared Links

Social sharing will also be a big part of Search Engine Land’s upcoming SMX Social Media Marketing conference next month in Arizona, so be sure to check out the full agenda of our event.

Also consider subscribing to our free column related to social media, Search & Social, and see some of the resources we list on our What Is Social Media Marketing page.

Parents turn out to be big on social media. Nearly half of visitors to local deals sites recommend those sites. Smartphone users spend two-thirds of their time using their phones on apps, rather than talking. And more:

Want the infographic for yourself? You’ll find it here: Infographic: The Most Valuable Digital Consumers.

Want to learn more about SoLoMo? Search Engine Land’s SMX Social Media Marketing conference next month in Arizona has a “SoLoMo: Social, Local & Mobile – A Crossroads Of Opportunity” session happening. It’s just one of several great sessions you’ll find on the full agenda.

Also consider subscribing to one of Search Engine Land’s three free columns in the social, local and mobile areas:

• Search & Social
• Local Search
• Mobile Search

Nielsen says that 43 percent of US smartphone owners have an Android handsets compared to 28 percent who own iPhones. These numbers are almost identical to comScore’s. We’ll see if holiday sales of the iPhone 4S change that in any way.

What’s most interesting about the data from Nielsen is the age-based segmentation they do. For those under 44 years old, smartphone penetration has now crossed the 50 percent threshold (54 percent). In fact for those in the 25-34 age category it stands at 62 percent.

If your target audience or prospect base is anyone under 45, know that more than half now own smartphones. Also understand that for some number of them — especially younger users — smartphones and tablets will be primary internet devices.

Let’s take a look at the hottest 2011 search halloween costume searches, courtesy of a few different sources from Google to one shopping search engine. If you’re still on the hunt for a last-minute Halloween costume idea, you’re bound to find something that works below.

Google’s Halloween Costume Search Trends

Google has been digging into Halloween costume searches

But as of mid-October, the Angry Birds were overtaken in search by [black swan costume]. The Darren Aronofsky ballet drama seems poised to be the most popular costume idea by All Hallows Eve, with related searches for everything from [black tutu] to [black corset]. Some are even looking to be the alter ego [white swan].

As for Lady Gaga, Google says that searches for [lady gaga costume] are about half as popular this year (blue line below) as they were last year (red line).

Google’s blog post doesn’t have a formal list of top costume-related searches, but the company shared this list with the LA Times earlier in the week (notice – no mention of Lady Gaga or Snooki).

1. Angry Birds
2. Black Swan
3. Playboy Bunny
4. Nicki Minaj
5. Smurfette
6. Wilfred
7. Monster High
8. Tron
9. Captain America
10. Pan Am
11. Charlie Sheen
12. Rapunzel

Yahoo’s Halloween Costume Search Trends

Earlier this month, Yahoo reported that “halloween costume idea” searches were already up 351% over 2010 — pretty remarkable stat there. We’re hoping to get some updated information from Yahoo’s post on October 10th, but as of that date, here’s some of what Yahoo reported:

Top Searched Baby Halloween Costumes

1. Angry Bird
2. Cookie Monster
3. Butterfly

Top Searched Celebrity Costumes (this month):

1. Lady Gaga
2. Nicki Minaj
3. Katy Perry

Top Searched Adult Costumes

1. Star Wars
2. Vampire
3. Pan Am Costume

Experian Hitwise: Top Halloween Costume Searches

Just as they did last year, Hitwise has posted the top costume-related search terms it’s seeing — but that was a month ago, so let’s use this updated chart that Hitwise sent us this afternoon. It covers searches over the four week period that ended last Saturday, October 22nd.

That’s the first mention of Strawberry Shortcake so far, but Hitwise also shows that Angry Birds and Black Swan are popular costume searches this month. Also, no Snooki or Lady Gaga.

SortPrice.com: Top Halloween Costumes

SortPrice.com, a shopping search engine, has tracked user searches and site traffic as far back a early September to come up with its list of the top adult and kids costumes this year:

Top Adult Costumes

1. Captain America
2. Green Lantern
3. Where’s Waldo
4. The Simpsons Duffman
5. Sexy Queen Bee

Top Baby/Kids Costumes

1. Harry Potter
2. Princess-themed costumes
3. Green Lantern
4. Captain America
5. Elmo

There’s no sign of Black Swan on SortPrice.com’s list, but Angry Birds did make the adult costume list in the No. 7 position … with Jersey Shore and Lady Gaga right behind.

We’ll update this post if Bing weighs in with its list of popular Halloween costume searches.

(Angry Birds costume photos from 1 Stop Costume Shop.)

For its part, Google has projected that “44 percent of total searches for last minute gifts and store locator terms will be from mobile devices this holiday season.”

Performics also believes that tablets (iPad) will play a significant role in search and shopping this holiday season:

The wild card this year will be increased tablet usage.  We think that tablets could show incredibly strong search share over the Cyber Stretch and at least mirror desktop’s day-level seasonality, very possibly outpacing it.  Tablets continued to grow—up from 34.3% of all mobile search clicks in August to 35.8% in September.

The volume of clicks/paid clicks coming from smartphones and tablets should dramatically pick up around “Black Friday” and continue through the end of the holiday shopping season, according to Performics’ estimates.

Whether the specific figures and projections Performics makes are precisely correct is beside the point. Mobile is becoming a very significant influence on consumer behavior and marketers must have an optimized presence and mobile search strategy.

A separate “social shopping” study released today by Performics showed the various in-store use cases for mobile. Price comparison search, deals/coupons and product reviews are the top actions or categories.