Search engine popularity - April 2006

Google continues to be the most popular search engine but new players are arriving.

The latest monthly figures from Comcast show that 43% of the 6.6 billion searches in the US in April were done on Google. The other main engines have lost 'share of search' to Google by a few percentage points over the last year as you can see in the table.

But note the last entry. MySpace, a social networking website where people post their personal details and organise their lives, had only 0.6% in April but this is still 43 million searches in one month.  The popularity of social networking online is high at the moment and some commentators are suggesting that it is a whole new way of reaching customers. We should keep our eye on MySpace. Chorial will be publishing an article shortly analysing the types of social networking and how they might affect its clients.

The figures come from a panel of 2 million consumers worldwide whose searches are tracked by Comscore. So their habits may be influenced by their knowledge of being watched. Even so, we think the trend is valid.