comScore released its October 2009 search share numbers and Google has passed 65% search market share, holding 65.4% share in October, up 0.5% from the previous month. comScore also claims that Microsoft Bing also gained 0.5% share, reaching 9.9%, while Yahoo dropped 0.8% to 18.0% from the previous month.

Nielsen also released its October 2009 stats, showing Google has a 66.1% share, Yahoo has a 15.4% and Microsoft Bing has a 9.7% share. I was unable to find Nielsen’s September report (did they publish one?) but I did find their August report which showed Bing had 10.7% share. In this case, Bing actually decreased in share by 1%, according to Nielsen.

As we always say, looking at these search share reports month-to-month is not always a good indication of the competitive landscape. I am sure Danny will be publishing a more comprehensive report, aggregating all this data, and fleshing out the true look at growth and decline amongst the various search engines.

Already widely reported from yesterday the Pew Internet & American Life almost 20 percent of US Internet users are on Twitter or updating their status with another social network: LinkedIn, MySpace or Facebook. According to the report:

Some 19% of internet users now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others. This represents a significant increase over previous surveys in December 2008 and April 2009, when 11% of internet users said they use a status-update service.

Three groups of internet users are mainly responsible for driving the growth of this activity: social network website users, those who connect to the internet via mobile devices, and younger internet users – those under age 44.

Here’s Pew’s demographic breakdown:

According to the report, parsing by network:

The median age of a Twitter user is 31, which has remained stable over the past year. The median age for MySpace is now 26, down from 27 in May 2008, and the median age for LinkedIn is now 39, down from 40. Facebook, however, is graying a bit: the median age for this social network site is now 33, up from 26 in May 2008.

The Pew report paints a slightly different and younger picture of Twitter users than earlier studies:

Source: comScore, February, 2009 (via MarketingCharts)

Here’s the breakdown of social networking more generally compared with Twitter usage:

The report also found that mobile users and those who have more devices are more likely to use Twitter or a comparable service for status updates.

These data illustrate the growing importance of integrating social media into search marketing strategies.

A new and wide ranging report from the UK regulatory agency Ofcom about media literacy finds that 32 percent of UK kids aged 12-15 years old believe that the links/listings shown at the top of search results are the most “truthful.” Here’s how the report summarized this finding:

Among children aged 12-15 who use the internet, almost all have experience of using search engine websites (94%).

Those who use search engine sites were shown a list of options and were asked to say which, if any, apply in terms of the way results are shown on search engine sites.

There is no clear consensus among search engine users, but 12-15s are more likely to respond that results are ranked on their usefulness or relevance (37%) or their truthfulness (32%) than they are to respond that websites pay money to be at the top of the list (14%).

The question prompting the responses charted above was “Which if any of these explain the way results are shown when you use search engine websites like Google, Yahoo, MSN or Ask Jeeves?”

From 2008 to 2009 the number of those who think that top search results are based on “relevance” declined in favor of “truthfulness.” It doesn’t appear there was much detailed questioning around sponsored vs. organic results and definitions or explanations of each category. Consequently it’s not clear to me if the kids are referring to paid results in their statements about relevance or truthfulness.

Since it’s launch Bing has steadily been inching up in market share, conveying the impression that Google has a bona fide competitor on its hands. Yesterday, however, data from NetApplications and StatCounter reflect that Bing may have seen its first usage declines since the engine’s launch several months ago.

Before getting too excited one way or another, we must be cautious. There are monthly upticks and downturns. Before drawing any broader conclusions we’d need to see this confirmed by comScore, Hitwise, Nielsen, Compete — in other words, a consensus view — and then we’d need to look at the trend over a period of time.

Source: StatCounter

There are more feature enhancements and releases in the pipeline for Bing. And I know that Microsoft believes it’s only just begun with the search engine. There’s also the Yahoo deal, which still must be approved but which more than double’s Bing’s advertiser’s reach. And there’s also mobile, which is heating up.

But if it turned out that Bing’s growth had in fact stalled it would be a kind of “what now?” moment for Microsoft.

It appears Google has pulled together a bunch of statistics throughout the web and created a small landing page named Google Internet Stats on the Google UK front. The page explains that this service “brings together the latest industry facts and insights together in one place.” Google collected this data from many third party vendors, on a wide range of topics. In fact, you can submit your data using this form.

Here is a picture of the mobile technology internet stats from this tool:

The categories of statistics include: - Consumer Trends – Community – Entertainment – Information – eCommerce - Macro Economic Trends – Rest of the World – UK - Media Consumption – Changes in Media Usage – Demographic Usage – Media Consumption Stats – Media Multi-tasking – Personalised Media Experiences - Media Landscape – All Media – Online - Technology – Broadband – Devices – Mobile – Speed

The current data providers include B2Bonline.com, BARB, BusinessWeek, Coke, Commission of the European Communities, Comscore, Core Metrics, Datamonitor, Deloitte, The Economist, eMarketer, Enders Analysis, Eurostat, Film Distributors Association, Financial Times, Forrester, GFK, Google Insights for Search, Greenbee.com, Guardian, HarvardBusiness.org, Hitwise, IAB, IFPI, IMF, Internet Retailing, Internetworldstats.com, JP Morgan, KMPG, Media & Marketing, Mediascope Europe, Mindshare, Motorola, Net Imperative, New York Magazine, Nielsen, NMA, Ofcom, Opsos MediaCT, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, QuickPlay Media Inc., Retail Week, Reuters, TGI Net, Times Online, TNS, Verdict Research, Wall Street Journal, WARC, YouTube, ZenithOptimedia, and GM.

Postscript: A Google UK representative answered some of my questions, clarifying the following:

• There are no plans to launch this tool elsewhere at the moment. This is a UK-only initiative.
• Any stats submitted by users will be verified by Google’s market research teams
• Google license data from a number of sources, as well as bring together publicly reported facts and stats from the web (sources shown on the site)

Google has an official blog post on this new initiative at their Google Barometer blog.

Bing’s share of paid search clicks is up 44% since its launch at the start of June. That’s according to a blog post from SEM provider Efficient Frontier.

As the company reported last month in its quarterly report, Bing continues to show strength in the Travel and Finance categories, with gains of 11% and 22%, respectively.

A report analyzing traffic and click-through rates from ad network Chikita finds that “Bing users are over 50% more likely to click an ad on your site than Google users.” What this means, according to the post, is those who arrive at third party sites via Bing click more frequently on ads on those sites than those coming through Google. TechCrunch offers a bit more detail and speculation about why this might be (i.e., “the law of large numbers”). According to Chikita, the respective click rates are:

• Google: .97 percent
• Yahoo: 1.24 percent
• Bing: 1.5 percent

Bing appears has made some incremental gains in search market share since its launch at the end of May. The two most recent roundups of the numbers are here and here. Even though Bing has been well received and has some momentum it doesn’t appear that will quickly translate into significant market share advances. For that reason Microsoft still needs Yahoo’s reach.

Turning to the seemingly perpetual subject of a search deal between Microsoft and Yahoo, AdAge is reporting that a deal, previously described as “imminent,” could be announced this week. The article says the payment structure was a sticking point and will be a revenue share rather than an upfront payment and revenue guarantees, which Yahoo had reportedly wanted:

Execs in Redmond never conceived of the deal as an upfront purchase of Yahoo’s search traffic but as a deal in which Yahoo would be compensated from a share of revenue from the sale of search ads. Yahoo would be allowed to sell search ads on Bing.com as well as its own site, giving it more search inventory to sell and making it a bigger player in the search sales front. It would also immediately be able to save millions by not having to maintain its own search infrastructure.

The latest terms of the deal underscore Microsoft’s devotion to developing and owning technology vs. selling media. The deal won’t make it a bigger seller of online advertising but it would allow it to eliminate a search-technology competitor in Yahoo and consolidate roughly 30% of the search marketplace on its own platform — a large enough share, CEO Steve Ballmer seems to believe, to dent Google’s dominance.

If the article is correct then Yahoo would retain the ability to sell search and display to its advertisers, but probably not through an integrated platform. Currently Yahoo sells search via Panama and display advertising through APT; however there was always discussion of integrating the platforms in the near term.

We’ll have to wait to see whether there’s a deal and what the terms are. Any such deal would have to pass muster with regulators before it could be implemented.

On that front, the NY Times ran an article this weekend describing internal conflict within the Obama administration about how aggressive to get with anti-trust policy and prosecutions. The US Department of Justice anti-trust chief Christine Varney, who has described Google previously as “a monopoly,” is apparently facing push-back in her quest to reign in some US corporations. How this internal debate plays out will affect scrutiny of potential deals such as Yahoo-Microsoft.

Trade magazine AdWeek and pollster Harris Interactive conducted a survey in early June among 2,521 US adults. People were asked what types of ads they found most “helpful” and what types of ads they ignored. Below are the top-line results as well as the age and geographically segmented data.

Most helpful in making purchase decisions:

• 37 percent say that television ads are most helpful
• 17 percent say newspaper ads are most helpful
• 14 percent say search engine ads are helpful
• Radio ads (3 percent) and Internet banner ads (1 percent) are not considered helpful by many people
• 28 percent say that none of these types of advertisements are helpful to them in the purchase decision making process

Ad types that people ignore:

• 46 percent say they tend to ignore Internet banner ads
• 17 percent ignore search ads
• 13 percent ignore TV ads
• 9 percent ignore radio ads
• 6 percent ignore newspaper ads

One in ten Americans say they do not ignore any of these types of ads. Interestingly, younger survey respondents tended to find search ads less helpful than older users and ignored them more. That’s a bit counter-intuitive.

Here are the data segmented by age and geography:

Search and display. One often hears how they work together, but there’s still plenty of skepticism out there, especially in the SEM community, about the value of display advertising. Indeed, during the recession search has prospered (relatively speaking) while display has suffered. But a new study from the Online Publishers Association (OPA) and comScore argues that display ads can have a major impact on search and consumer engagement. The study, called “The Silent Click: Building Brands Online” (pdf), compares the behaviors of consumers exposed to online display advertising vs. those in a control group.

According to the press release and supporting materials, the study “assessed 80 of the biggest branding campaigns across 200 of the most trafficked sites over a month’s time analyzing consumer behaviors of those Internet users who were exposed to display advertising . . . and measured three consumer actions: 1) searches conducted related to the advertisers’ brands; 2) site visitation, the traffic driven to the advertisers’ site and 3) consumer spending, the e-commerce transactions related to the advertisers’ brands.” The top-level findings were as follows:

• One in five conduct related searches and one in three visit the brands’ sites
• Users spent over 50% more time than the average visitor to these sites and consumed more pages
• Users spent about 10% more money online overall, and significantly more on product categories related to the advertised brands
• Higher income audiences visited the advertisers sites

Standard CTRs for banners and other display ads range from .06% to .17% according to DoubleClick data presented in the OPA slides.

Among the interesting things about the study, the OPA is arguing that clicks are essentially a false metric for other than DR advertisers. Previously Tacoda did research released early in 2008 on online click behavior and found that the “heavy clickers” were not necessarily a desirable audience:

Called “Natural Born Clickers,” the study reveals that a very small group of consumers who are not representative of the total U.S. online population is accountable for the vast majority of display ad click-through behavior.

Consistent with this earlier data, according to the Silent Click report:

• 16% of [the] internet population represents 80% of ad clicks
• Clickers are predominately younger (24-44 age range) and lower income (under $40K)

The vast majority of those exposed to display advertising in the study did not click on ads but later performed activities, such as (trademark and brand) searches and site visits, that indicated they had in fact been influenced by the display ads:

Those exposed to the display ads were also considerably more engaged than those in the control group:

These data are further segmented by site content category (news, sports, business news, entertainment) and other variables such as user income. The bottom line is that a CTR is not a good measure of consumer intent, engagement or value as a metric for display advertising. The data also affirm what many other studies have also shown: display and search can work together and display provides a significant lift to search.

Beyond proving the value of display the OPA has spearheaded the development and now launch of new, more creatively engaging ad units making their debut around the internet today. Among the new ad units is the “push down” (below). These larger units provide more opportunities for interesting creative and consumer engagement. Here’s one for Bing on the NY Times website:

In the end, then, one of the potential substitute metrics (beyond CTRs) to evaluate the success of an online display/branding campaign is search volumes on branded keywords.

Somewhere online right now there’s a music fan who’s big on free downloads, likes Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” but doesn’t know the lyrics, is looking for free ringtones, uses MySpace, likes to play solitaire and wants the latest game cheats. Like many of us, s/he uses a search engine to find all of these things.

This person may as well be playing Russian roulette.

In a recent report (PDF), online security company McAfee says those are some of the most dangerous search terms on the web.

That’s just a sample of the report’s list of the 50 riskiest search terms in the U.S. “Maximum Risk” describes the percentage of pages on a single search results page that were dangerous; i.e., on a search for “lyrics,” there was one search results page on which 50% of the ranked pages were risky. “Average Risk” is the overall risk from all five pages of search results for each term.

McAfee analyzed the first five search results pages of 2,600 popular keywords across five search engines: Google, Yahoo, Live, AOL, and Ask. They analyzed both organic and paid listings and counted the number of links that led to pages that McAfee’s SiteAdvisor tool flagged as dangerous. The study ultimately reviewed more than 413,000 unique URLs.

McAfee’s study also found that certain categories of keywords were more riskier than others. Searches related to “lyrics” and “free” had both the highest average risk and highest maximum risk.

It should be no surprise that McAfee also found scammers like to look at popular trends when choosing what keywords to target. Here’s a chart showing some of the riskiest terms related to the economic crisis:

The report also has charts detailing the most dangerous search terms in other U.S categories, as well as several other countries including Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and others. Here’s the PDF download link (2.2mb) if you’re interested in more details.

To some degree, the McAfee report calls into question how well the search engines themselves do at notifying users of risky sites. Yahoo uses McAfee’s SearchScan, Ask uses Symantec, while Live Search Bing and Google have their own malware detection tools. But, on a purely anecdotal level, if you search for the terms listed in the McAfee report, Google, Yahoo, and Bing show very few warnings in the first five pages of results.

(found via Lifehacker)