With the numbers all over the place, we must look at the different reports as directional more than 100% accurate representations of market share. Here’s the new comScore search market share data for February:
- Google: 42.3% (up vs. one year ago)
- Yahoo: 27.6% (down)
- MSN: 13.5% (down)
- Ask.com: 6% (up)
At the same time, search volume appears to be up according to Nielsen (lots more detail in the pdf). The company said that search volume increased 39% in January and 30% in February. This contrasts with comScore, which shows query volume growth at around 11%. Both companies put overall volume in excess of 5 1/2 billion monthly searches.
How does one account for this fairly wide variation? Regardless . . . What’s at stake in query volume growth? — monetization of course. More queries equals more inventory and more clicks.
