Search Engine Market Share Statistics – January 2011

by James Perrin on 17th January 2011

Google have continued their domination of the search markets both in the UK and the US. In the latest set of figures from Hitwise, the figures for UK search engine market share indicate that Google still have a stranglehold on the market with a staggering 90.68% of the market share.

In the UK search engine markets, the figures to January 15th 2011 reveal that Bing have come out as the only major winners this month, as they were the only search engine that saw an increase in their market share from last month, up 0.75%. Between December 2010 and January 2011, Google, Yahoo, Ask and other search engines all saw a slight drop in market share, with Yahoo seeing the largest drop of 0.36%.

In other markets, the UK figures from Hitwise show that Google is still the most visited website with 8.83% visit share, with Facebook coming second this week with 7.35% visit share. This is in contrast to the US market, which actually saw Facebook overhaul Google as the most popular site of 2010 as we have recently reported [see: Facebook Overhaul Google as the Most Popular Site of 2010].

Continuing with the US markets and comScore figures reveal that Google have once again increased their search market share to 66.20% from 66.60% back in November. The 0.40% difference has come at Yahoo’s expense, whose share was reduced from 16.40% in November 2010 to 16.00% in December 2010. This makes grim reading for Yahoo, who already surrendered 1.90% from June 2010 to November 2010, as reported in last month’s Search Engine Market Share Statistics [see: Search Engine Market Share Statistics - December 2010].

Therefore, from June 2010 to December 2010, Yahoo has seen a reduction of 2.30% in the search engine market share.

The figures also indicate a slight increase for Microsoft who can boast a 0.20% search market increase at Ask and AOL’s expense who both saw a drop in search market share of 0.10%. Therefore, in the US search engine markets, we have seen Microsoft and Google come out on top just in time for Christmas. When the January 2011 figures are released, it will be interesting to see if this trend continues, along with Yahoo’s huge decline within 2010, something we will be keeping a close eye on.

Meanwhile, only one search engine saw an increase in the UK market over the Christmas period. Bing’s growth may be the start of what industry experts have been predicting would happen with the search engine market for some time; more competition for Google. However these recent figures suggest a more even share of the search engine market is a long way off yet.