Switchfast Blog: The Future of IT
Bing Market Share Surges One Year After Formal Launch, Possibly Overtakes Yahoo
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 by Bryan Anderson
While the top spot for search engine market share sits
comfortably with Google, the battle for second has been heating up.
According to one source, Bing has overtaken Yahoo as the second
largest search engine in the U.S. Let's dive into some numbers to
figure out if this is true.
The numbers have shown an overall increase in search engine
volume. Since January, Google, Yahoo, and Bing have seen increases
in search volume with Google seeing the greatest jump. However, SearchEnglineLand.com points out some
intriguing June numbers: While Google increased its volume by 1.3%,
Bing saw a 7.3% increase, slightly ahead of Yahoo's 6.6% rise. This
essentially means searches are increasing and market share is
slightly down for Google.
In a blog post from Nielsen Wire, the search
competition showed "significant movement" among Google's closes
competitors. Specifically, the month over month change from May to
June for Bing's search share saw a 0.4% increase, the only brand
that saw an increase during this time period. Both Google and Yahoo
saw a 0.1% drop in market share.
What's more intriguing is the big picture. The year over year
change from June 2009 to June 2010 revealed a promising direction
for Bing and a treacherous one for Yahoo. The relative YoY (year
over year) change for Bing was 50.9% going from 8.9% market share
in 2009 to 13.4% market share in 2010. Yahoo on the other hand went
from 16.2% to 13.7% respectively, notching a -15.8% relative
change.
Even with these positive numbers, most research companies still
have Bing sitting behind Yahoo in search rankings... until now.
Chitika, an ad network which collects information from over
80.000 sites in its network, has released data that suggests Bing
not only claims the second spot but by a healthy margin. According
to Danny Sullivan over at SearchEngineLand.com, the credit for Bing's
heavy increase belongs to the huge marketing effort by Microsoft as
well as renewed attention during its one-year anniversary.
While the traffic numbers for Chitika's purposes encompass all
of North America, their data shows that Bing actually controlled
the two spot back in January 2010. Over a year, from Jan. '09
to Jan. '10, Bing doubled in share from 3.9% to 7.8%. During the
same time, Yahoo saw a 1.7% drop to 6.6%. Even the most current
data from July '10 shows Bing eclipsing Yahoo by 4.5% in market
share!
Why such a difference in numbers from Nielsen and other US
rating services? Sullivan points out that Chitika is "measuring how
many visitors leave a search site and come to web sites in its
network," as opposed to most firms that measure how many searches
occur per engine. He suspects that Yahoo is "very good at recycling
people who search at Yahoo back into Yahoo's own properties,"
meaning that their means of collecting data wouldn't account for
these searches as they do not end on a third-party web site in
their network.
The data does prove one thing: Google holds a firm grip on
search market (with anywhere from 67% to 80%, according to
different sources), but search competitors are not giving in.
Search volume is bound to increase with the growth of broadband
access. As more search features arise, Internet users will begin to
personalize their search experience. Whether it's with Google,
Bing, or Yahoo, the consumer will continue to have options no
matter who holds the market share lead.
Until next time -
Matthew Hymel
Switchfast Technologies
Chicago IT Support &
Consulting
Rochester
IT Support & Consulting
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