Americans Search Less MOM, More YOY in Feb.

March 14, 2011

comscore-us-search-engine-total-core-by-number-of-queries-feb-11.gifAmericans conducted substantially fewer online core searches in February 2011 than in the prior month but more than in February 2010, according to new comScore qSearch data. The roughly 16.9 billion core searches conducted during the month represents a 9% drop from almost 18.6 billion in January 2011, but an almost 17% increase from 14.5 billion in February 2010.

Google maintained its lead with almost 11 million core searches, down 8% from about 12 million the month before but up about 16% from roughly 9.5 million a year earlier. Number two core search provider Yahoo lost the largest percentage of its month-over-month core search total, 12%, dropping from 3.3 billion to 2.9 billion.

None of the top five core search providers lost total core searches year-over-year. February 2010 also showed a general drop in core search activity from January 2010, but by smaller percentages.

Yahoo, Microsoft Register Notable Core Search Share Changes

comscore-us-search-engine-total-core-share-feb-11.gifAs with total core searches, the top five core search providers maintained the same order they had in both February 2010 and January 2011 in terms of core search share. The only notable changes in share percentage occurred with number two Yahoo, which at 17.3% gained 4% from February 2010 (16.8%) but lost 3% from 17.9% in January 2011; and with number three Microsoft, which at 13.4% gained close to 5% from 12.8% month-over-month and 16.5% from 11.5% year-over-year.

Explicit Core Searches Drop 10%

comscore-us-search-engine-explicit-queries-feb-11.gifMore than 15.4 billion explicit core searches, which comScore did not track in February 2010, were conducted in February 2011, down 9% from 16.9 billion the previous month. Google ranked first with 10.1 billion searches, followed by Yahoo with 2.5 billion, Microsoft with 2.1 billion, Ask Network with 491 million and AOL, Inc. with 267 million.

Losses in explicit core search totals ranged from a low of 5% (Microsoft) to a high of 15% (Ask Network) among the top five explicit core search providers.

Explicit Core Search Share Changes Little

comscore-us-search-engine-explicit-share-feb-11.gifExplicit core search share results in February 2011 did not change much from either the previous month or year. Google held 65.4% of the US core search market in February 2011, down slightly from 65.6% in January 2011 and 65.5% in February 2010.

The top five core search providers retained their order from the prior month and year. There were no significant changes month-over-month.

Google, Bing Dominate Organic Search

In February 2011, 68% percent of searches carried organic search results from Google, while 26.2% of searches were powered by Bing organic results.

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