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Google, Yahoo Maintain Consistent Growth
By Chris Richardson
Staff Writer
Article Date: 2005-07-21
With the proliferation of the search engine industry into everyday life, a number of institutions now measure the growth of search, much like you would test for television ratings.
The prominent company when it comes to studying industries like these is Nielsen//NetRatings, who just released a study of search engine growth (PDF) during the first two quarters of 2005 and the results were not surprising... at least from Google and Yahoo's perspective. To arrive at its conclusions, the study measured the amount of searches each engine in question conducted during the two quarters.
The Nielsen report reveals what many who follow the industry expected: Google and Yahoo continuing to experience consistent growth and remain the industry leaders. MSN Search on the other hand actually experienced a 4% loss between the two quarters in question, losing 60,000 searches during this period. Surprisingly, AOL and Ask Jeeves (read the interview with the Jeeves butler) experienced a healthy amount of search increase, giving them an impressive growth rate between the time period studied by N//N.
The study also indicates both Ask and AOL experienced double digit growth between the quarters, with AOL growing by 15%. Ask Jeeves also saw an increase of searches, giving the resilient engine a growth rate of 16%. However, of these 5, Ask's volume of searches was the lowest, conducting 467,525 queries out of 25,112,886 (the total amount of searches conducted during Q1 and Q2). Commenting about the study, Ken Cassar, director of strategic analysis, Nielsen//NetRatings, offered: "While growth in searches was modest among the ‘Big Three' search engines, the fourth and fifth biggest search engines, AOL and Ask Jeeves, grew three times as fast. While it's far too early to say that Google needs to watch its back, a resurgent AOL makes the game a lot more interesting." Nielsen's study also highlighted the search vertical responsible for these levels of growth, image search. According to the study, between quarters 1 and 2, image search was main vertical responsible for the growth for four of the five engines. The biggest beneficiary of the image search increase is MSN who experienced a 90% increase between the two quarters.
In case you are wondering, Google was once again at the top of the mountain with the most total searches during the Q 1 and 2 (11,825,440, which represents almost half of the 25 million cumulative searches). Google has also gained a 47% share (2,032,227) of the total searches conducted during June 2005. What follows are tabled representations of the study's findings:
Table 1. Search Growth for Top 5 Search Engines, Q1-Q2 2005:
| Search Engine | Q1 2005 Searches
(000) | Q2 2005 Searches
(000) | Percent Change | | Google | 5,737,097 | 6,088,343 | 6% | | Yahoo! | 2,576,473 | 2,798,123 | 9% | | MSN | 1,659,235 | 1,590,049 | -4% | | AOL | 562,816 | 646,641 | 15% | | Ask Jeeves | 216,656 | 250,869 | 16% | | Overall Total | 12,263,765 | 12,849,121 | 5% |
Table 2. Top Search Engines by Share of Searches, June 2005 (U.S., Home & Work):
| Search Engine | Searches (000) | Share of Searches | | Google Search | 2,032,227 | 47% | | Yahoo! Search | 965,644 | 22% | | MSN Search | 540,687 | 12% | | AOL Search | 237,408 | 5% | | My Way Search | 78,821 | 2% |
Table 3. Main Drivers of Search Growth for Top 5 Search Engines, Q1-Q2 2005:
| Provider/Vertical | Q1 2005 Searches (000) | Q2 2005 Searches (000) | Percent Change | | MSN Image Search | 9,305 | 17,694 | 90% | | AOL Image Search | 5,718 | 9,935 | 74% | | Yahoo! Image Search | 92,403 | 143,643 | 55% | | Ask Jeeves News Search | 450 | 637 | 42% | | Google Image Search | 482,629 | 541,843 | 12% |
To learn more, please read Nielsen//NetRatings' thorough breakdown. (PDF)
About the Author:
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news.
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