comScore Releases January 2012 U.S. Search Engine Rankings
RESTON, Va., Feb. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace. Google Sites led the explicit core search market in January with 66.2 percent of search queries conducted.
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U.S. Explicit Core Search
Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in January with 66.2 percent market share (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Microsoft Sites with 15.2 percent (up 0.1 percentage points) and Yahoo! Sites with 14.1 percent. Ask Network accounted for 3.0 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.6 percent.
comScore Explicit Core Search Share Report*
January 2012 vs. December 2011
Total U.S. - Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
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Core Search Entity Explicit Core Search Share
(%)
------------------ --------------------------
Dec-11 Jan-12 Point
Change
--- ------ ------
Total Explicit Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A
-------------------------- ----- ----- ---
Google Sites 65.9% 66.2% 0.3
------------ ---- ---- ---
Microsoft Sites 15.1% 15.2% 0.1
--------------- ---- ---- ---
Yahoo! Sites 14.5% 14.1% -0.4
------------ ---- ---- ----
Ask Network 2.9% 3.0% 0.1
----------- --- --- ---
AOL, Inc. 1.6% 1.6% 0.0
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*”Explicit Core Search” excludes contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.
17.8 billion explicit core searches were conducted in January, with Google Sites ranking first with 11.8 billion. Microsoft Sites ranked second with 2.7 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.5 billion, Ask Network with 527 million and AOL, Inc. with 277 million.
comScore Explicit Core Search Query Report
January 2012 vs. December 2011
Total U.S. - Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
------------------------
Core Search Entity Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)
------------------ --------------------------------
Dec-11 Jan-12 Percent
Change
--- ------ ------
Total Explicit Core Search 18,235 17,804 -2%
-------------------------- ------ ------ ---
Google Sites 12,019 11,786 -2%
------------ ------ ------ ---
Microsoft Sites 2,750 2,707 -2%
--------------- ----- ----- ---
Yahoo! Sites 2,647 2,506 -5%
------------ ----- ----- ---
Ask Network 531 527 -1%
----------- --- --- ---
AOL, Inc. 287 277 -3%
--------- --- --- ---
U.S. Total Core Search
Google Sites accounted for 66.2 percent of total core search queries conducted (up 0.1 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.0 percent and Microsoft Sites with 13.8 percent. Ask Network comprised 2.6 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.4 percent.
comScore Total Core Search Share Report*
January 2012 vs. December 2011
Total U.S. - Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
------------------------
Core Search Entity Total Core Search Share (%)
------------------ --------------------------
Dec-11 Jan-12 Point
Change
--- ------ ------
Total Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A
----------------- ----- ----- ---
Google Sites 66.1% 66.2% 0.1
------------ ---- ---- ---
Yahoo! Sites 16.2% 16.0% -0.2
------------ ---- ---- ----
Microsoft Sites 13.8% 13.8% 0.0
--------------- ---- ---- ---
Ask Network 2.6% 2.6% 0.0
----------- --- --- ---
AOL, Inc. 1.4% 1.4% 0.0
--------- --- --- ---
* “Total Core Search” is based on the five major search engines, including partner searches, cross-channel searches and contextual searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in these numbers.
Americans conducted nearly 20 billion total core search queries in January. Google Sites ranked first with 13.2 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.2 billion and Microsoft Sites with 2.8 billion.
comScore Total Core Search Query Report
January 2012 vs. December 2011
Total U.S. - Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
------------------------
Core Search Entity Total Core Search Queries (MM)
------------------ -----------------------------
Dec-11 Jan-12 Percent
Change
--- ------ ------
Total Core Search 20,525 19,975 -3%
----------------- ------ ------ ---
Google Sites 13,560 13,218 -3%
------------ ------ ------ ---
Yahoo! Sites 3,318 3,191 -4%
------------ ----- ----- ---
Microsoft Sites 2,829 2,761 -2%
--------------- ----- ----- ---
Ask Network 531 527 -1%
----------- --- --- ---
AOL, Inc. 287 277 -3%
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“Powered By” Reporting
In January, 68.4 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google (vs. 68.1 percent in December) while 26.5 percent of searches were powered by Bing (no change vs. December).
About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.
SOURCE comScore, Inc.