Surprisingly, I haven’t posted a search engine market share report in 30 days. We did post lots of other interesting data in the interim however. This week, we’re getting back to the evolving search engine landscape. Of course, not a lot overall has changed since our last look at the data.
Google continues to own almost 80% of the actual click through market share. We recognize that our numbers are different from some other reports. The core difference is our reports reflect click through activity, as opposed to general activity. As demonstrated in the post “how long is normal,” while most search lookup activity is on one word queries, click throughs occur most often on three-word searches. The same holds true for the various engines. A lot of people apparently run searches on Bing / Yahoo, but they refine their searches prior to clicking through. Hence, Google shows a much higher market share when we examine just click through activity.
As it relates to the change in activity over the last month, Bing continues to show strong forward momentum, and Yahoo continues to fade away. Sad, really. Google’s decline which started in June appears to have stabilized at a dominating ~78.4% market share. If we look at areas outside the US, Google’s share is even higher.
For convenience, this graph shows the change in Yahoo / Bing / and other non-google shares since May 2009. If you want to look at the raw data that for back you can view it on the prior blog post about search engine market shares. The data table is getting so long however that we’ll just show the last 4 months from here on out. I’m using an “all-time” chart to show the trends though.
The raw data for those who prefer the numbers:
|
Google |
Yahoo |
Bing |
Other |
| September 7 |
78.68% |
11.51% |
6.80% |
3.01% |
| September 14 |
78.35% |
11.13% |
6.50% |
4.02% |
| September 21 |
77.43% |
11.35% |
7.11% |
4.11% |
| September 28 |
77.65% |
10.80% |
7.27% |
4.28% |
| October 4 |
77.78% |
10.66% |
7.23% |
4.33% |
| October 12 |
77.78% |
10.66% |
7.21% |
4.35% |
| October 18 |
77.89% |
10.65% |
7.29% |
4.17% |
| October 25 |
77.83% |
10.56% |
7.56% |
4.05% |
| November 1 |
77.75% |
10.46% |
7.66% |
4.12% |
| November 8 |
77.96% |
10.21% |
7.75% |
4.08% |
| November 15 |
77.60% |
10.39% |
7.59% |
4.42% |
| November 22 |
77.59% |
10.41% |
7.67% |
4.37% |
| December 22 |
78.43% |
9.73% |
7.86% |
3.97% |
Enquisite collects data from a network of thousands of web sites distributed globally. The data used in this reports represents web sites distributed globally, accessed by searchers located in the U.S., and reflects click-through activity data.
Posted under Enquisite Search Metrics, Google, Market Share, Search Analytics, Search Metrics, Yahoo, bing
Last week I posted some information about user behavior in relation to depth of visit. This week I’m going to share some data regarding how different browsers result in varying user behavior.
For the month of November, I decided to break down the user behavior differences behind Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE), Firefox, Apple’s Safari, and Google’s Chrome. At first glance one would assume that if someone visits a web site time on site and pages viewed should not be affected by browser. Yet, this is not the case. One could argue that Chrome and Firefox users are more sophisticated, as evidenced by the fact that they deleted their default browser, Safari and MSIE usage is almost identical, which should be the norm if default browsers were used, as it reflects the simplest behavior patterns. The most sophisticated users would change away from the defaults, and be faster / less patient in navigating sites.
Are Mac users really any more sophisticated than Windows users; perhaps not…?
| Browser |
Percentage of Visitors |
Average Pages Viewed |
Average Time on Site |
| MSIE |
60.38% |
4.60 |
0:04:08 |
| Firefox |
25.08% |
3.85 |
0:03:42 |
| Safari |
8.58% |
4.33 |
0:04:01 |
| Chrome |
3.42% |
3.65 |
0:03:35 |
The change in browser usage away from MSIE is truly stunning. I’m going to monitor this drop, and Chrome’s surge in case it was Holiday related. Stranger things have happened.
About the data. Enquisite works with thousands of sites worldwide and captures a trove of relevant search-related data every day. The browser shares reported here are based on data from a selection of Enquisite-tagged sites that cumulatively represent over 350 million page views/month, across most major industry sectors - a very significant sample size. The data reported solely reflects our data.
Posted under Browsers, Chrome, Enquisite Search Metrics, Google, Market Share, Search Analytics, Search Metrics, bing
This week I had the pleasure of moderating and speaking at SES Chicago. It was probably my favorite Chicago show yet. What a change from last year when everyone was nervous about how deep the economy would slide into chaos.
One subject that did create some buzz - no surprise - was Google’s announcement of an always-on personalized search. There’s been lots written about it, and the change truly is spectacular. Unfortunately, spectacular doesn’t always equate good.
Rather than dwell on all the questionable issues that the always-on personalized search system raises, I’m going to comment about something that’s actually good in this update: The death of the ranking report. Finally! Finally, rankings are totally meaningless as a reporting metric. Ranking reports which scrape results to identify a position in the search results have been deceptive for years, but now they are unquestionably and completely useless. Anyone providing a ranking report as authoritative is deceiving their clients.
In a way, I am thrilled with Google’s personalization changes, as they make the performance reporting used in Enquisite Optimizer even more valuable. It now is definitely the only real way to measure true page and rank positioning. Optimizer shows where people located anywhere in the world are finding your site in the results, based on actual click-through activity, not some bogus ranking report. This is only analytical platform which report back to you on what your customers are actually seeing in the search results.
People who use traditional ranking reports as a reporting metric are no longer able to report any meaningful data. First off, the data collected are unique to that computer. Second, other activity from that computer affects the results. Run just one site’s reports from a system? Do anything else with it? Anything you search for with that computer can now affect the results you’re seeing. Wait until Caffeine rolls out, and anything you do with that computer will cause variations. Use Google Docs, Gmail, or any other Google products? Your results will vary.
So how can any ranking report based on what one, or even 100 computers which repeatedly run ranking analysis reports be accurate? They can’t. The ranking report you used to use as a metric is dead.
If, as a user, you’re not comfortable with the new personalized search “benefit” just wait for caffeine to roll-out in full next year. Me? I’ve already changed my default search engine in Firefox to Bing. Strange, I’m not concerned about how responsibly Microsoft will handle my information.
Posted under Analytics, Enquisite Search Metrics, Google, Ranking Reports, Search Analytics, Search Engines, Search Metrics, bing, search analytics
Greetings from Search Engine Strategies Berlin!
This week, our weekly trend data of search engine market share as defined by click-through activity shows a Bing regaining its forward momentum, after a slight slip last week. However, looking at the last four weeks, it seems that Bing is hovering quite steadily around the 7.7% market share mark. Over the next few weeks we should be able to see if this is maintained as a normal position, or if Bing recovers its forward momentum.
It should be interesting to observe what happens this week. Each year we see a big drop in search referral traffic associated with the week of the American Thanksgiving Holiday. Will all the engines drop the same proportionate amount, or will Google’s traditional strength in the IT and student marketplace result in a larger drop in market share for the week? Next week I’ll try and put together a chart showing how search volume drops in the run-up to the Holiday, and also how it bounces back.
As always, we’re providing the data in weekly breakdowns to try and identify trends in very granular ways. This data reflects actual clickthrough activity, and not the number of queries run. Meaning if someone performs a search on Yahoo, but doesn’t click through to the results, we don’t track it. We only track searches which generated referrals.
The raw data for those who prefer the numbers, not the graphics:
|
Google |
Yahoo |
Bing |
Other |
| September 7 |
78.68% |
11.51% |
6.80% |
3.01% |
| September 14 |
78.35% |
11.13% |
6.50% |
4.02% |
| September 21 |
77.43% |
11.35% |
7.11% |
4.11% |
| September 28 |
77.65% |
10.80% |
7.27% |
4.28% |
| October 4 |
77.78% |
10.66% |
7.23% |
4.33% |
| October 12 |
77.78% |
10.66% |
7.21% |
4.35% |
| October 18 |
77.89% |
10.65% |
7.29% |
4.17% |
| October 25 |
77.83% |
10.56% |
7.56% |
4.05% |
| November 1 |
77.75% |
10.46% |
7.66% |
4.12% |
| November 8 |
77.96% |
10.21% |
7.75% |
4.08% |
| November 15 |
77.60% |
10.39% |
7.59% |
4.42% |
| November 22 |
77.59% |
10.41% |
7.67% |
4.37% |
Enquisite collects data from a network of web sites distributed globally. The data used in this reports represents web sites distributed globally, accessed by searchers located in the U.S., and reflects click-through activity data.
Posted under Enquisite Search Metrics, Google, Market Share, Search Engines, Search Metrics, Yahoo, bing
As promised to lots of people last week at Pubcon, and to Mike Grehan over at SES, I’m going to start posting even more varied data.
A frequent request from and for search marketers is insight into the mobile browser market. While still tiny in relation to general web traffic when considered from the search perspective, the growing adoption of devices built with web browsing in mind make these numbers are worth watching. I suspect that as iPhones & Android devices become even more ubiquitous, these numbers will continue to grow. Most remarkably, if Blackberry built a better web interface / UI into their devices, I suspect their share would more accurately reflect their general market share for devices in use.
I’ve prepared two charts: one which includes all the mobile browsers; and one with the iPhone removed. The reason is simple - the iPhone is so dominant that it’s impossible to see market share changes for the others without excluding it. This is very much like Google’s overwhelming marketshare dominance in search.
With the iPhone’s market share displayed, it’s hard to make out any of the competitors:
Without the iPhone’s market share displayed, it’s much easier to see the trends starting to emerge:
The obvious insights that I spied immediately were:
1) Android outperforms Blackberry even thought their install base is tiny by contrast.
2) Android’s numbers will be very interesting to watch with Verizon’s big push on their devices.
3) Windows Mobile numbers are horrible! By the time MSFT catches up on search, they’ll realize that they’ve lost their dominant position for being the interface to the web! (IE, mobile etc…)
4) Look at the Palm Pre! For a phone which T-Mobile didn’t really do a great job pushing, their lead on Microsoft is astounding. (yes, I’ve asked for those numbers to be double-checked).
5) Every one of these browsers is growing strongly and steadily. It’s a great sign for the future of mobile marketing!
What are your thoughts?
The raw data for those who prefer the numbers, not the graphics:
|
iPhone |
Android |
Blackberry |
Palm Pre |
Win Mobile |
| July 31 |
0.448% |
0.038% |
0.026% |
0.008% |
0.005% |
| Aug 31 |
0.591% |
0.045% |
0.033% |
0.012% |
0.007% |
| Sept 30 |
0.583% |
0.043% |
0.041% |
0.012% |
0.007% |
| Oct 31 |
0.663% |
0.049% |
0.044% |
0.016% |
0.008% |
Enquisite collects data from a network of web sites distributed globally. The data used in this reports represents web sites distributed globally, accessed by browsers located in the U.S.
With mobile browsing in particular, I suspect there’s a higher level of incidence than even of browsers who look up information, but never click through to any destination web site, leaving the search engine / resource of choice being the information portal.
Yes, Google is unquestionably a portal when mobile is considered.
Posted under Browsers, Enquisite Search Metrics, Google, Market Share, Search Metrics
