Yahoo saw its total core search queries rise 17% between April and May 2011, from about 3.24 billion to almost 3.79 billion, according to qSearch data from comScore. No other of the top five US search engines experienced anything close to this type of month-over-month core search query growth.
Google Total Core Search Queries Rise 7% MOM
Longtime core search query leader Google came closest with 7% month-over-month growth, increasing from 11.6 billion to 12.2 billion core search queries. Americans conducted nearly 19.3 billion total core search queries in May, up 7% from about 18 billion in April.
Yahoo Only Top 5 Engine with MOM Core Search Share Growth
Google accounted for 63.3% of total core search queries conducted, down about 1% from 64.2% in April; followed by Yahoo with 19.6%, up 9% from 17.9% the prior month. Yahoo was the only top five search engine to increase its core search query share from April, with Microsoft, Ask Network and AOL all reporting slight losses.
Explicit Core Search Queries Grow Moderately
More than 17 billion explicit core searches were conducted in May, up 5% from 16.3 billion in April. Google ranked first with 11.2 billion searches, up 5%, followed by Yahoo with 2.7 billion, also up 5%. Microsoft Sites followed with 2.4 billion (up 4%), Ask Network with 502 million (up 2%) and AOL, Inc. with 254 million (up 2%).
Explicit Core Search Shares Stay Flat
Google led the U.S. explicit core search market in May with 65.5% market share, followed by Yahoo with 15.9% and Microsoft with 14.1%. Ask Network accounted for 2.9% of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.5%. All five search share totals stayed virtually flat from the previous month.
‘Powered By’ Search Totals Flat MOM
In May, 67.8% of searches carried organic search results from Google, which is flat month over month. 26.5% of searches were powered by Bing, which is also flat month over month.
Microsoft Core Search Figures Jump YOY
For the second straight month, Microsoft showed substantial year-over-year growth in its core search share and query totals. In May 2010, Microsoft held a 12.1% share of the core search market, which grew close to 17% to 14.1% in May 2011. In terms of core search queries, Microsoft reported 1.93 billion in May 2010, which grew 24% to 2.4 billion in May 2011.
