Google Search Growing

Posted on July 15, 2008

The climb continues. Google accounted for over 69% of all U.S. Internet searches in June of 2008, that according to new data from Hitwise. What’s even more unbelievable is that even at that level, where you would think there was near landslide numbers, the search engine is still continuing to grow and add more market share. Just a year ago it accounted for just under 64% percent and just last month it was at slightly over 68%. You would think with all the searches it would take to amount to 1% of the market that adding even 1% to the already staggering numbers would take a long time. But Google keeps doing it.

Obviously then, for Google to keep gaining market share, someone else has to lose it. In this case it is once again Yahoo Search and MSN Search. Yahoo Search is down to just under 20% after last year being over 21%. Microsoft (which runs MSN) is fairing much worse percentage-wise, down almost 50%. A year ago they had nearly 10% share and now that has been cut almost in half.

This data continues to show why Microsoft really needs to acquire Yahoo’s search business or all of Yahoo if it has any hopes of anything resembling competing in the search business. It has been trying to do so for the past several months, but the two sides thus far have not been able to come to terms.

In many parts of the world Google is even more dominant than in the US. In the UK for example, Google accounts for 87% of all searches. Yahoo and Microsoft both hold about 4%. In Australia, Google controls nearly 88% of all searches.