Around this time last year, I looked at browser market share in the context of Google’s Chrome browser release. The market has definitely changed quite a bit since last year. Most surprisingly for me is how Chrome rebounded from a soft launch. Firefox, Chrome and Safari now account for nearly 31% of search queries worldwide, up 50% over September, 2008. Interestingly, Firefox and Safari have both grown by almost 45% in their combined market share vs. November, 2008.
At first glance this particular data set doesn’t appear to help much with SEO. But usability is a major concern of any SEO, and browser compatibility is key to usability. So SEOs need to understand these trends and plan accordingly to render properly within the leading browsers.
Separately, my friend Cindy Krum is always asking me about mobile browser data. Total mobile browser market share now surpasses 1% of all search engine referral browser views. Not surprisingly, the iPhone leads the pack at is at almost 0.6% marketshare, which is significant, and double the share vs. April of this year. RIM, Opera and Android and a few others make up the remainder. One year ago, Android was a non-issue. Now, it’s 0.04%. Still tiny, but noticeable. SEOs need to pay attention to this emerging trend. The real estate in the organic listings on the mobile browsers is much smaller, and the likelihood of people on mobile browsers going to page 2 in the results is also lower, so being at the top of the page one listings in mobile really is all that matters.
|
July 2009 |
August 2009 |
September 2009 |
| MSIE (all) |
67.59% |
66.75% |
66.61% |
| Firefox |
19.09% |
21.99% |
21.13% |
| Safari |
5.12% |
6.86% |
7.08% |
| Chrome |
1.83% |
2.27% |
2.38% |
| iPhone |
0.45% |
0.59% |
0.58% |
| Android |
0.04% |
0.04% |
0.04% |
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.
Lastly, yesterday marked the kick-off for SMX East. Sadly, I’m not going to be there this year, as I had to bow out at the last minute for personal reasons. I know a few people, Jessica Bowman among them, had commented that were looking forward to some data, so in that vein, I hope this provides some insight into what’s going on in the search world. More data on blog posts to come.
postscript - for those who don’t like having 2 windows open… here’s the numbers from last year…
| Date |
Chrome |
Firefox |
Safari |
MS IE (All) |
| 09/30/08 |
0.501% |
15.007% |
4.321% |
79.832% |
| 10/15/08 |
0.433% |
15.387% |
4.178% |
79.592% |
| 10/20/08 |
0.462% |
15.643% |
4.296% |
79.183% |
Posted under Analytics, Browsers, Chrome, Enquisite Search Metrics, Market Share, Search Engines, Search Metrics
The pay-per-click environment is changing rapidly. Microsoft’s attempted acquisition bid has forced Yahoo! in to an ad-distribution deal that will see Google AdWords appearing in place of Yahoo Search Marketing ads across much of the Yahoo! network. Yahoo! was using PPC advertising delivered by Google to bolster revenues in order to push Microsoft’s bid price higher while exploring the viability of giving Google its PPC ad-space should Yahoo! wiggle away from Microsoft’s control.
Yahoo! ran a test last month in which it displayed Google-driven results beside approximately 3% of US search results. Since Google has a much larger inventory of PPC advertisers to draw from than Yahoo! does, it has a better chance of finding the right ads against keyword queries. The experiment showed that ads injected from Google’s AdWords network converted better and drove higher revenues.
The experiment has led to a short-term deal between Yahoo! and Google, one that served to derail Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Yahoo!.
The HooGoo deal, while driving up Yahoo!’s projected and real bottom line and giving it a lucrative lifeline, has attracted attention from the FTC and SEC as it potentially gives Google over 90% of the PPC market. It’s attracting our attention too.
PPC Assurance is in a unique position as one of the only independent PPC click-stream analysis providers. PPC Assurance was designed to monitor and improve PPC driven traffic and detect invalid click activity. We’ve found an enormous number of invalid clicks caused by explainable mistakes made by the search networks or within the campaign settings of PPC advertisers. We expect to see more very, very soon.
Integration of AdWords into Yahoo!’s content stream is bound to lead to a greater number of campaign placement errors, those that show your ads in areas or at times outside campaign parameters set by the advertiser. While PPC advertisers can expect to see greater traffic as the contextual relevance of pay per click ads in the Yahoo! network improves, we anticipate they will also see a larger number of misplaced ad placements leading to a greater number of invalid clicks.
How long this situation will stay in place or the depth of ad integration with Google is anybody’s guess. Though the maneuvering between Microsoft and Yahoo! appears to be over, industry watchers anticipate Ballmer might take another stab if Yahoo!’s share prices plummet as expected.
As it stands today, the acquisition attempt was unsuccessful and Yahoo! will likely pursue deepening its relationship with Google Ads; so long as the FTC and/or the SEC allow them to. A rejection from the FTC or SEC could reopen the door for a second Microsoft takeover attempt.
Whichever way the networks move in the coming months, the PPC marketing environment is going to undergo a radical makeover. Enquisite’s PPC Assurance will be measuring and monitoring traffic as it does, generating as many invalid click refund reports as necessary. Make sure your PPC campaigns are monitored, especially during this time of network integration.
Posted under PPC Assurance
So I arrived at Search Engine Strategies New York today, and I was asked by a couple of people about search engine market shares. After pulling out the Ask numbers last week, I had all the data ready to go for the other engines. Remember, this data reflects the search referral data we’re seeing across the entire network of sites that Enquisite is tracking, so thousands of sites’ data contributed to these numbers. When I actually graphed the data, it looked quite interesting.
I had to break the data into two parts. In this first graph we see Yahoo have its customary summer spike, which generally seems to relate to the end of school. During the summer months students spend less time online, but when they go online it’s to fetch mail and the like. During this period, Yahoo! generally goes up in market share, as most students appear to use Yahoo Mail. Normally, we also see Google drop during this period.
What’s interesting is that MSN is slowly but surely gaining traction, and moving up. It’s gone from 2.9% in January 2007 to just over 5% at the end of January 2008. Still small, but almost 100% growth, and anyone in business know’s 100% growth does matter.
Meanwhile however, Yahoo’s actually losing market share, and at a greater rate than MSN’s growing.
Now take a look at what happens when we add Google to the mix.
Google’s actually over 80% of all search referral traffic we’re seeing across our network of sites. In fact, the data I’m looking at for March has Google reaching 83% of all search referrals we’re seeing. This data is culled from well over 250 million referrals in the last year.
So, is search getting more competitive? Not really. Is Microsoft buying Yahoo going to make much of a dent in Google’s lead? Nope. But (as Rand pointed out) if you look at their combined reach in the display ad business that’s a different matter.
Posted under Analytics, Ask, Enquisite Search Metrics, Google, MSN, Market Share, Search Engines, Search Metrics, Yahoo
