More than 113 billion searches were conducted worldwide in July 2009, representing a 41% increase vs. the same period last year, according to an analysis of the global search market by comScore, Inc.
Not surprisingly, Google Sites attracted significantly more searches than any other engine, with 76.7 billion searches conducted, or 67.5%? market share, the analysis found.? Yahoo Sites ranked a distant second worldwide with 8.9 billion searches (7.8%? share), followed closely by Chinese search engine Baidu with 8 billion searches (7.0% share).
Most of the top search properties worldwide experienced significant growth in search query volume vs. last year, the analytics firm said, adding that Russian search engine Yandex grew at the fastest rate (94%) among the top 10, while Google grew 58%.
Search Behavior by Global Region
According to comScore, the dynamics of search behavior vary considerably across different parts of the world. Among the five global regions comScore tracks, Europe accounted for the highest share of searches at 32.1%, followed by Asia Pacific (30.8%) and North America (22.1%).
Latin America exhibited the heaviest search behavior per person with an average of 13 search usage days in July and 130 searches per searcher. Europe had the second-highest overall search volume per person (117 searches per searcher) while North America exhibited the second heaviest frequency (12.5 search usage days per searcher).
July 2009 US Core Search Rankings
In figures specific to the US search marketplace, comScore’s monthly qSearch analysis for July 2009 revealed that Americans conducted nearly 13.6 billion core searches during the month, with Google Sites accounting for 64.7% search market share (8.9 billion searches).
Google was followed by Yahoo Sites, which saw 2.6 billion searches (19.3% share), and Microsoft Sites, which had 1.2 billion searches (8.9% market share). Ask Network captured 3.9% of the search market (536 million searches), followed by AOL LLC with 3.1% (424 million searches).
Microsoft Sites – which include Bing – experienced a 0.5 percentage-point gain vs. June 2009, comScore reported.
The number of July searches conducted by Americans was down slightly for the third consecutive month because the summer months generally tend to see lighter overall search volume with people spending more time outdoors and on vacation.
July 2009 US Expanded Search Rankings
In the July 2009 analysis of the top properties where search activity is observed, comScore also reported that Google Sites led the search market with 12.9 billion searches, followed by Yahoo Sites with 2.8 billion. Microsoft Sites ranked at #3 with 1.3 billion searches, up 3% from May, followed by eBay with 709 million.
Facebook.com – with a 35% increase – experienced the highest growth of the top 10 expanded search properties.
