Google search share slips after 11 months of increases

By Stuart Corner
Monday, 21 August 2006 01:07

Strategy

According to the latest stats from comScore Networks. Google's share of the US search market dipped one percent in July to 43.7 percent after 11 consecutive months of increases.
Second ranked search site Yahoo! boosted its share 1.3 percent to 28.8 percent. MSN-Microsoft's share was steady at 12.8 percent, Tim Warner up 0.3 percent to 5.9 percent and Ask Network up 0.3 percent to 5.4 percent.

However over the past year Google has taken considerable market share at the expense of all its rivals: its share has risen from 36.5 percent in July 2005. Total search volumes were up 30 percent on July 2005.

Overall comScore says Americans conducted 6.3 billion searches online in July, down two percent on June reflecting seasonal declines typically seen in July. Google sites accounted for 2.7 billion searches followed by Yahoo sites (1.8 billion), MSN-Microsoft (802 million), Time-Warner Network (366 million), and Ask Jeeves/Ask Network (338 million).

comScore says its statistics are based on a "massive, global cross-section of more than two million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behaviour, including online and offline purchasing."