Search Engine popularity - May 2006

The latest monthly figures from Comcast show that 44.1% of the 7.4 billion searches in the US in May 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 0.7% in May but there were 53 million searches up 23% since April.  And that market share is rising at 17% a 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.