Yahoo-Bing Stat Fight: Nielsen Says “Oh Yes They Did,” comScore Responds “Oh No They Didn’t”
How can Nielsen say Bing has overtaken Yahoo while comScore reports that Yahoo grew and leads Bing by more than 6 points? Someone is right and someone is wrong.
Here is the Nielsen data from earlier this week, showing Microsoft/Bing overtaking Yahoo:
And here is the August comScore data (reported by Citibank):
- Google: 65.4% (down from 65.8% in July)
- Yahoo: 17.4% (vs. 17.1% in July)
- Bing 11.1% (vs. 11% in July)
The comScore data show Bing as flat, not growing. The combined share of Bing and Yahoo is 28.5%.
Among the firms that track search market share Nielsen is the outlier right now. I’m going to ask Nielsen how to explain the discrepancy in the data between the two firms.
In the meantime, how would you explain it?
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