Nielsen: Google Hits New Search Share High

Another ratings service shows Google hitting an all-time high for search share in the United States. This is according to April 2008 search share stats from Nielsen Online that were released (PDF) today. Last week, Hitwise also reported Google hitting a new record. Microsoft also dips below the 10 percent mark for the first time. […]

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April 2008 Nielsen US Search Share

Another ratings service shows Google hitting an all-time high for search
share in the United States. This is according to April 2008 search share stats
from Nielsen Online that were
released (PDF)
today. Last week, Hitwise also reported Google hitting a new record. Microsoft
also dips below the 10 percent mark for the first time.

Here are the percentage shares for the top five search engines shown in the
pie chart above:

  • Google: 62.0%
  • Yahoo: 17.5%
  • Microsoft: 9.7%
  • AOL: 4.3%
  • Ask: 2.1%

Note that in the chart above, traffic from Ask.com-owned
My Web Search is not combined by Nielsen
with the Ask figure. If it were, the Ask figure would rise to 2.8 percent.

The trend over time? Here’s data going back to November 2007 (data from
previous periods doesn’t compare because Nielsen
changed its methodology):


April 2008 Nielsen US Search Share Trend

Google hit a new high, up from its previous high
last month. Both
Yahoo and Microsoft hit new lows after previous lows last month, but Microsoft’s
was more dramatic.

How about number of searches versus market share?

  • Google: 5.1 billion
  • Yahoo: 1.5 billion
  • Microsoft: 796 million
    AOL: 352 million
  • Ask: 172 million

The trend:


April 2008 Nielsen US Search Share

Caveat Time!

As a reminder, my general rules when evaluating popularity stats:

  • Avoid drawing conclusions based on month-to-month comparisons. Lots
    of things can cause one month’s figures to be incomparable to another month.
    It’s better to see the trend across multiple months in a row.
     
  • Avoid drawing conclusions based on one ratings service’s figures.
    Each service has a unique methodology used to create popularity estimates.
    This means that ratings will rarely be the same between services. However, a
    trend that you see reflected across two or more services may give you faith in
    trusting that trend.
     
  • Consider Actual Number Of Searches: While share for a particular
    search engine might drop, the raw number of searches might still be going up
    (and thus they might be earning more money, despite a share drop). This is
    because the "pie" of searches keeps growing, so even a smaller slice of the
    pie might be more than a bigger slice in the past.

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

Danny Sullivan
Contributor
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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