Search Engine Market Share Statistics – February 2010

by Lucy Griffiths on 1st February 2010

Latest figures show that Google has continued its search engine market dominance, Bing has made small gains and Yahoo are spiralling into search oblivion.

Once again we take a look at the search activity of users both sides of the pond to gauge how the search engine market is developing. Since our last report in November [see: Search Engine Market Share Statistics - November 2009], Google have continued to strengthen their vice-like grip on the industry whilst Bing have been picking up some of Yahoo’s deserters.

Google now control over two thirds of the U.S. market, extending their share from 65.4% in October up to 67.3% two months later (statistics courtesy of Nielsen). Here, the search giant is now just shy of a 90% share, being the engine of choice for 89.68% of all searches, which is in itself a 0.94% leap (figures from Hitwise). But for all these gains there have to be losses, and unfortunately for Yahoo! they have been the hardest hit.

In the United States, where Yahoo have traditionally been very strong, their search figures have dropped from 18% in October to just 14.4% in December. It’s only a little rosier for them in the UK market where the once imperious search engine fell from 5.51% to 4.72%. This looks like a clear backlash to their upcoming departure from the search market, with Yahoo hoping to complete a tie-in with Microsoft and their Bing search engine.

Speaking of Bing, the newcomer has remained resolutely on 9.9% of the U.S search market share, whilst increasing their UK share to 3.07% – as compared with 2.89% previously. This probably isn’t quite the huge impression that Microsoft were hoping to make, but at least it hasn’t crumbled in the face of more experienced adversaries.

These are very much intermediary figures, especially as the YaBing merger remains very much in the pipeline, but they do serve to highlight the growing influence of Google. Gaining 1.9% of a U.S market that had 9.95 billion searches in December is no small feat and the 0.94% increase here just consolidates their already impressive figures.

Clearly YaBing will have to do a lot of work to turn this unabating tide, which of course means that the SEO industry will continue using Google as their benchmark for the foreseeable future. We will, as always, be keeping a close eye on the changing search engine market share and inform you of the most significant movements as and when they occur.