Posts Tagged ‘market shares’
Bing Growing, Yahoo Steady - Search Engine Market Share Update
It’s been almost seven months since I last provided insight into the search engine market shares based on click through activity. After holding relatively steady for months, this latest update shows Bing has grown by 2.0%. Perhaps most interestingly, it’s no longer growing at the expense of Yahoo, which was previously the case.
Here’s the raw numbers:
| Yahoo | Bing | Other | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 7 | 78.68% | 11.51% | 6.80% | 3.01% |
| September 14 | 78.35% | 11.13% | 6.50% | 4.02% |
| September 21 | 77.43% | 11.35% | 7.11% | 4.11% |
| September 28 | 77.65% | 10.80% | 7.27% | 4.28% |
| October 4 | 77.78% | 10.66% | 7.23% | 4.33% |
| October 12 | 77.78% | 10.66% | 7.21% | 4.35% |
| October 18 | 77.89% | 10.65% | 7.29% | 4.17% |
| October 25 | 77.83% | 10.56% | 7.56% | 4.05% |
| November 1 | 77.75% | 10.46% | 7.66% | 4.12% |
| November 8 | 77.96% | 10.21% | 7.75% | 4.08% |
| November 15 | 77.60% | 10.39% | 7.59% | 4.42% |
| November 22 | 77.59% | 10.41% | 7.67% | 4.37% |
| December 22 | 78.43% | 9.73% | 7.86% | 3.97% |
| Month of June 2010 | 75.93% | 9.94% | 9.82% | 3.83% |
Eightfold Logic collects data from a network of web sites distributed globally. The data used in this reports represents web sites distributed globally, accessed by searchers located in the U.S., and reflects click-through activity data.
Mobile Market Share on the Move - Is Android Superior?
It would appear that based on data which would indicate people’s habit with their mobile devices, that the Android offers a better user experience for surfing the Internet than the Google iPhone. While the Android and the iPhone’s share of the overall browser market continues to grow, it is surprising to note that despite the iPhone’s lead in activations, mobile web usage of phone browsers powered by Google’s Android appears to be picking up steam faster than Apple’s iPhone.
The last time I posted market share numbers around web browser referrals to web sites from mobile devices, the various devices had not yet even broken a combined 1% total share. It appears that milestone’s long gone now, as shown in the chart below. Looking at the graph, and data, there’s more going on beyond the obvious “Google’s Android web usage is exploding faster than Apple’s iPhone.” The reality is while that fact is important, and can be attributed in part to the diversity (60) of devices running the Android OS, versus the four devices running Apple’s iphone, the diversity of devices in stores is minor compared to the fact that there are many more Apple iPhone devices in circulation. Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone 4’s within days of release along, and has years worth activation , compared to 160,000 Android phones being activated daily. That gap pales when comparing the mobile browser usage numbers.
A while back Steve Jobs was quoted that most iPhone activity goes via apps, versus search or traditional browser. I found that comment interesting as it reflects a different layer of Internet activity which most of us ignore. While this likely is true, the stunning growth rate in overall web browser usage from Androids v. iPhones reveals something else: People with Android phones use them quite differently from those who have iPhones.
While putting together these numbers, I happened to read Peter Sims’ Tech Crunch’s article “Is Google at Risk of Becoming the Next Microsoft.” When I look at these numbers, the answer definitely becomes no. Just the innovation is not in the same area as before.
Now, I don’t own either an Android or an iPhone. I do have a Blackberry Bold 2, which is great for email and has good sound quality, but it lacks the quality browser experience which might entice me to surf via my phone. If I have to look something up online using my Blackberry, it’s a last resort. Conversely, that function is key to both the Android and iPhone. However, it appears that despite Apple’s massive lead in total footprint based on activations, Android is making that experience much more positive, and as a consequence, Android owners are much more likely to surf using their devices.
The web sites which we are tracking, and using as a basis for the data that we are reporting are not likely to be accessed directly via apps. Apologies for the timescale jump, for those who like the raw numbers:
| iPhone | Android | Blackberry | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July | 0.448% | 0.038% | 0.026% | |
| Aug | 0.591% | 0.045% | 0.033% | |
| Sept | 0.583% | 0.043% | 0.041% | |
| Oct | 0.663% | 0.049% | 0.044% | |
| July 2010 | 1.070% | 0.483% | 0.051% |
Eightfold Logic collects data from a network of web sites distributed globally.
Weekly Search Engine Market Share Update
Last week I published information about how the market shares for the search engines have evolved over the last few months. I’m going to attempt to post updates almost every week, offset randomly by other interesting trends such as browser share numbers. This week, I’ve put together a weekly update, as quite a few people emailed me about the evolving trends.
To highlight the trend, I’ll re-post the data from early September.
search engine market shares for search engine usage based on searchers located in the US
| Yahoo | Bing | Others | September 7 | 78.68% | 11.51% | 6.80% | 4.06% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 14 | 78.35% | 11.13% | 6.50% | 4.02% |
| September 21 | 77.43% | 11.35% | 7.11% | 4.12% |
| September 28 | 77.65% | 10.80% | 7.27% | 4.28% |
| October 4 | 77.78% | 10.66% | 7.23% | 4.25% |
| October 12 | 77.78% | 10.66% | 7.21% | 4.36% |
| October 18 | 77.89% | 10.65% | 7.29% | 4.16% |
Again, this data represents search engine click through activity where the people initiating the searches are located in the U.S. At some point I’ll present information on global search activity.
Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox Continue to Grow; Don't Ignore Mobile
Around this time last year, I looked at browser market share in the context of Google’s Chrome browser release. The market has definitely changed quite a bit since last year. Most surprisingly for me is how Chrome rebounded from a soft launch. Firefox, Chrome and Safari now account for nearly 31% of search queries worldwide, up 50% over September, 2008. Interestingly, Firefox and Safari have both grown by almost 45% in their combined market share vs. November, 2008.
At first glance this particular data set doesn’t appear to help much with SEO. But usability is a major concern of any SEO, and browser compatibility is key to usability. So SEOs need to understand these trends and plan accordingly to render properly within the leading browsers.
Separately, my friend Cindy Krum is always asking me about mobile browser data. Total mobile browser market share now surpasses 1% of all search engine referral browser views. Not surprisingly, the iPhone leads the pack at is at almost 0.6% marketshare, which is significant, and double the share vs. April of this year. RIM, Opera and Android and a few others make up the remainder. One year ago, Android was a non-issue. Now, it’s 0.04%. Still tiny, but noticeable. SEOs need to pay attention to this emerging trend. The real estate in the organic listings on the mobile browsers is much smaller, and the likelihood of people on mobile browsers going to page 2 in the results is also lower, so being at the top of the page one listings in mobile really is all that matters.
| July 2009 | August 2009 | September 2009 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSIE (all) | 67.59% | 66.75% | 66.61% |
| Firefox | 19.09% | 21.99% | 21.13% |
| Safari | 5.12% | 6.86% | 7.08% |
| Chrome | 1.83% | 2.27% | 2.38% |
| iPhone | 0.45% | 0.59% | 0.58% |
| Android | 0.04% | 0.04% | 0.04% |
About the data. Enquisite works with thousands of sites worldwide and captures a trove of relevant search-related data every day. The browser shares reported here are based on data from a selection of Enquisite-tagged sites that cumulatively represent over 350 million page views/month, across most major industry sectors - a very significant sample size.
Lastly, yesterday marked the kick-off for SMX East. Sadly, I’m not going to be there this year, as I had to bow out at the last minute for personal reasons. I know a few people, Jessica Bowman among them, had commented that were looking forward to some data, so in that vein, I hope this provides some insight into what’s going on in the search world. More data on blog posts to come.
postscript - for those who don’t like having 2 windows open… here’s the numbers from last year…
| Date | Chrome | Firefox | Safari | MS IE (All) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09/30/08 | 0.501% | 15.007% | 4.321% | 79.832% |
| 10/15/08 | 0.433% | 15.387% | 4.178% | 79.592% |
| 10/20/08 | 0.462% | 15.643% | 4.296% | 79.183% |
Search Engine Referral Rates by Page in SERPs
I’ve been asked a lot of questions over the last 10 years about how deep in the search results do people actually go before they clicked through on a result. In the past I’ve run a few reports on this information, but using only a month or two worth of data.
I just ran another report, but instead of two months, I used a sampling of our data representing ~300MM search referrals pulled from a much longer time period. What I found was the percentage of traffic from page one is actually increasing over time
I didn’t segregate out PPC or image searches, so this data does represent referrals in the aggregate. When we look at the hard numbers behind the data, the growing gap between page 1 and the rest is stunning.
| 2007-04 | 2007-05 | 2007-06 | 2007-07 | 2007-08 | 2007-09 | |
|
Page 1
|
85.50% | 86.03% | 87.18% | 87.79% | 88.07% | 88.40% |
|
Page 2
|
7.61% | 7.52% | 6.90% | 6.52% | 6.47% | 6.44% |
|
Page 3
|
2.84% | 2.71% | 2.48% | 2.35% | 2.28% | 2.21% |
|
Page 4
|
1.30% | 1.19% | 1.09% | 1.04% | 1.00% | 0.92% |
|
Page 5
|
0.82% | 0.75% | 0.69% | 0.66% | 0.64% | 0.58% |
| 2007-10 | 2007-11 | 2007-12 | 2008-01 | 2008-02 | 2008-03 | |
|
Page 1
|
88.42% | 88.47% | 88.81% | 88.90% | 88.78% | 89.71% |
|
Page 2
|
6.47% | 6.44% | 6.23% | 6.19% | 6.39% | 5.93% |
|
Page 3
|
2.20% | 2.16% | 2.05% | 2.06% | 2.04% | 1.85% |
|
Page 4
|
0.92% | 0.91% | 0.89% | 0.88% | 0.87% | 0.78% |
|
Page 5
|
0.57% | 0.57% | 0.55% | 0.55% | 0.54% | 0.46% |
It’s stunningly obvious that Page 1 generates the vast majority of traffic. Everyone knows this intuitively, but this data provides the facts to substantiate it. Page 2 still gets some traffic, but it’s negligible by comparison. While not appearing to hold much value, these placements are not entirely worthless.
Although a Web page which is found on Page 2 or lower on search engine result pages, (SERPs) may not get much traffic, you want to make these pages some of the prime targets in your SEO campaign. Although people aren’t finding these pages as often, they have incredibly high value simply because the search engines are finding and placing them, just a few small steps away from the success of page one.
Consider it from the opposite perspective: 90 percent of search engine users never venture beyond the first page of results. Listings found on page 2 of the SERPs are incredibly valuable, just not quite valuable enough to make it to page 1. These pages are your gems in the rough, and should be thought of as home-runs in waiting. With a little work, they can easily place on the first page, and you can hit it out of the park on an SEO campaign, just by concentrating your efforts in the right places.
Find the pages where you’re achieving page 2 or 3 placements, and focus on optimizing and improving the pages found there. Small adjustments can bump you up onto page 1, and will make your traffic soar. Get more pages moving up in the listings, and the effect on other pages in your Website is cumulative.
Search Stats Update - Search Market Share - Ask.com
I haven’t made a Search Statistics update in a while. No excuses. Just haven’t. I’m going to rectify that now, and I’ll put up some more numbers later today or tomorrow.
With all the uncertainty around Ask, and a lot of people discussing how it’s looking like it’s dropping out of the race, I thought I should should post some numbers which reflect what we’re seeing for their share of the search marketplace over the last year and a bit. We used data representing more than 250 Million search referrals since Jan 1 2007.
2007-01 2.50%
2007-02 2.99%
2007-03 1.74%
2007-04 1.68%
2007-05 1.67%
2007-06 1.26%
2007-07 1.02%
2007-08 0.94%
2007-09 1.15%
2007-10 1.23%
2007-11 1.17%
2007-12 1.19%
2008-01 1.25%
2008-02 1.03%
2008-03 0.90%
If a tree falls in the forest, does anyone hear?