Shaw & Todd - Advertising and Marketing Communications

I recently conducted an poll among friends looking to gauge their search engine habits (I know what you’re thinking, “Stay away from this guy at parties.”). I asked each person which search engine they typically use and to then take a guess at what percentage of U.S. searches went through Google. The results of the first question went as expected: an overwhelming majority use Google, while a select few search via their My Yahoo! page or Yahoo! toolbar. The answers to the second question ran the gamut: some thought that Google owned as many of 95% of all searches, while others pegged it somewhere around 65-70%. It was clear that everyone was confident of Google’s place as the search market leader, but to what degree there wasn’t a consensus.

Now for the actual stats. The numbers vary a bit depending on the source, but it appears Google’s search dominance in the U.S. falls within the 60-67% range. This shocked the more than a few that guessed it was somewhere around 90%. Ok, maybe shocked is a bit too strong of a word, but it did surprise them. Yahoo!’s share hovers around 20% according to the tracking source Hitwise. MSN (7%) and Ask (4%) come in a distant 3rd and 4th.

So the moral of this blog entry is this: for those of us who utilize pay-per-search as an advertising tool, it’s good to be reminded of Yahoo!’s search engine marketshare. If you currently are “Google Adwording” then you should definitely also advertise on Yahoo!’s paid search services.

(inside reference of the day: let’s not forget about eZanga, or boy will you be sorry)