Desktop Search: Google May Have Peaked Last Year According To comScore

Late this afternoon comScore released its monthly report on US desktop search market share. Google controlled 63.8 percent of all PC search volume in August. Microsoft (Bing) had 20.6 percent and Yahoo saw 12.7 percent. Bing was up a fraction of a point at Google’s apparent expense, while Yahoo was flat. Month over month Google […]

Chat with SearchBot

google-bing-logos2-1920

Late this afternoon comScore released its monthly report on US desktop search market share. Google controlled 63.8 percent of all PC search volume in August. Microsoft (Bing) had 20.6 percent and Yahoo saw 12.7 percent.

Bing was up a fraction of a point at Google’s apparent expense, while Yahoo was flat. Month over month Google is only off 0.2 percent. However the company’s desktop search share is down nearly 4 points vs. a year ago when it was 67.6 percent. Google may thus have “peaked” on the desktop.

August comScore search rankings

The measurement firm said that there were 17.6 billion PC-based searches in August. Google saw 11.3 billion of them. We must conclude then that there were at least that many mobile queries, given Google’s previous statement in May that mobile queries had overtaken search volumes on the PC.

According to StatCounter Google controls nearly 90% of mobile search in the US. Yahoo had just over 7 percent and Bing roughly 4 percent of mobile volumes. StatCounter may not be an entirely precise data source in this case; although the gaping mobile chasm between Google and its rivals is undoubtedly accurate.

Postscript: I spoke yesterday with comScore informally about this and the company said that this may actually be a by-product of some of the changes in default search deals and their impact rather than any Google “peaking.”


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Greg Sterling
Contributor
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land, a member of the programming team for SMX events and the VP, Market Insights at Uberall.

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.