Outlook Series | comScore Networks: Google Regains Search Share

comScore Networks: Google Regains Search Share

September 23, 2006

comScore Networks released its monthly qSearch analysis of activity across competitive search engines. In August 2006, Google Sites regained some ground from the 1.0 share point decline it suffered in July, gaining 0.4 share points to capture 44.1 percent of the U.S. search market. Yahoo! Sites maintained its second place ranking with 28.7 percent of U.S. searches. Microsoft Sites (12.5 percent) and Time Warner Network (5.6 percent) each slipped 0.3 share points from the previous month, but held steady in third and fourth places, respectively. Ranking fifth, Ask Network (5.5 percent) showed a modest market share gain versus July.

Share of Online Searches by Engine August 2006 vs. August 2005 Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users Source: comScore qSearch
	Aug-05	Jul-06	Aug-06	Pt Chg vs. Yr Ago
Total Internet Population	100%	100%	100%	N/A
Google Sites	37.3	43.7	44.1	6.8
Yahoo! Sites	29.7	28.8	28.7	-1.0
MSN-Microsoft Sites	15.8	12.8	12.5	-3.3
Time Warner Network	9.6	5.9	5.6	-4.0
Ask Network	6.0	5.4	5.5	-0.5

• Americans conducted 6.5 billion searches online in August, up 3 percent versus July. Annual growth rates in search query volume remained strong with a 28-percent increase since August 2005.

• Google Sites led the pack with 2.9 billion search queries performed, followed by Yahoo Sites (1.9 billion), MSN-Microsoft (812 million), Time-Warner Network (360 million), and Ask Jeeves/Ask Network (358 million).

• Google and Yahoo! continued their dominance in toolbar searches, combining for more than 95 percent of the market share in August. Google grabbed 49.6 percent of toolbar searches, while Yahoo! captured 47.3 percent.