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Google Businesses The Internet

Google's Share of Searches Falling? Or Increasing? 220

Posted by CowboyNeal from the damn-liars-and-statisticians dept.
prostoalex writes "Get two research companies in the room, and you'll likely end up with three opinions. Bear Sterns quotes ComScore Networks data, which says that Google's share of searches is slipping, down to 36.9% in June 2005. WebSideStory, a Web research company, on the other hand, claims that in June 2005 Google hit a new record as far as share of searches, hitting 52%, and leaving rivals far behind."
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Google's Share of Searches Falling? Or Increasing? More

Google's Share of Searches Falling? Or Increasing?

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  • Someone said once that... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xor.pt ( 882444 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:16PM (#13130343)
    Statistics only benefit those who pay for them.
    • Yah that and 53% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
      • 100% of cliches are repeated Some, perhaps, on the spot.
      • Or maybe we are finding that the network data lines compared to current census data (demographics) shows that connectivity in it's functioning sectional infrastucture is broken down by both largely race and economic factions of city dwelling residents, and the success rate of connectivity is so relative, looming on the down side would be economically inviable regions. If such a structure were shown to affect studies based on data collected from different view points (jumps throught the entire network throu
        • I think it's a difference in methodology.
          comScore monitors the web browsing habbits of people who agree to let them. Websidestory monitors websites along with browser stats etc they check referrers.

          It's quite possible they are both right. Google may be getting less actual traffic than before but is passing more of the people through to other sites.

    • Well, and then someone else said, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."

      Statistics, with a little tweaking and creative enclosure, can be stated to mean anything. I recieved something in the mail about buying bed linens for my dorm room which stated something along the lines of "70% of students that bought linens bought a package". Read quickly, it could be interpreted to mean that 70% of students bought linens. But that's not what it meant.

    • Yes, we must all learn to ignore these biased studies and trust the really reliable source of information - anecdotal evidence.

  • Hold on a sec... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:17PM (#13130355)
    ...while I google for the answer...
  • This actually happens far more than most people realize. Close to 37% of comparative statistics are in opposition to each other, while nigh on 79.3% of all statistics continue to be made up. There's also a a roughly 100% chance of this getting modded redundant if I don't hit "submit" in the next 9.3 seconds. We'll all know whether I made or not shortly...

  • Quality, not Quantity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:18PM (#13130363)
    IT's far more important _which_ searches they're getting. In my online advertising efforts, the quality of traffic coming from Google is FAR superior to what we're getting out of MSN, AOL, etc.
    • Umm you must not do much marketing on the internet. Overture(MSN and Yahoo) has higher conversion ratio than adwords but on the other hand adwords is much cheaper. Prices are set by the people who buy the ads since its based on a bid type system. Adwords does factor in how many times people click on your ad which helps shift through all the junk ads people post but it still can't compare that most of my business comes from overture for the exact keywords.
    • How do you define the "quality" of visitors? I would say someone who clicks on ads is better quality for a search engine, and the newbies on msn and aol are more bound to do that.
    • When someone clicks an ad on Google, it's usually deliberate: The ad is clearly marked, so people probably won't click on it unless they're actually interested in buying something.

      With many search engines, the ads aren't so clear: What appears to be a search result is actually an ad, so the people who click on it aren't as likely to be looking for a specific product.
    • I think a significant part of this particular difference is that Google results much easier to scan quickly with your eyes because the blurbs don't go all the way across the page, but are concentrated on the left. This mans I can scan the results without moving my eyes left/right. This means that users can look through more search results without actually clicking through which in turn means that the click throughs that are chosen will be more often on average 'closer' to what they were looking for.
      That s

  • So? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pcmanjon ( 735165 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:18PM (#13130364)
    Well if the amount of searches google is getting is going down -- you have to account for where they are going.

    Are the lost searches going to elsewhere to altavista, ask jeeves, dogpile?

    How can you conduct research if you can't account for where the "lost searches" have gone to? How can they tell it's not an error in their study?

    • Re:So? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:29PM (#13130452)
      I've stopped searching altogether and prefer to just guess at URLs.
    • I wonder if I'm Feeling Lucky searches are counted in either study. I've found that I'm using the main Google search less and less nowadays after installing Firefox and just typing the relevant keyword straight into the location bar.

      More often than not the exact site I was looking for is displayed almost instantly.

    • http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=google+"market+sh are" [google.co.nz] and you will get 651000 answers! At least until Google spiders this comment, in which case you will get 651001. But you can always trust the 1st answer, this is Google you know. :-)

    • Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by steelfood ( 895457 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:57PM (#13130632)
      If Google's searching algorithm gets better, fewer people would have to reword their query, thus resulting in fewer overall searches.

      Another factor is what users are searching for, and why. If I wanted a quick definition or synonym, I'd use dictionary.com or thesaurus.com, respectively. If I wanted to quickly search for factual information about a particular subject, I might use wikipedia's search instead of google. If I wanted to search for movie listings, I'd use yahoo. If I wanted to search for movie information, I'd use IMDB.

      So perhaps google's percentage is down. But its raw numbers might not necessarily reflect this.
      • If I wanted to quickly search for factual information about a particular subject, I might use wikipedia's search instead of google.

        Boy, that one made me laugh out loud. Wikipedia as a trusted source for "factual information"....

        Max
    • Well if the amount of searches google is getting is going down -- you have to account for where they are going.

      Lately I've become increasingly frustrated with Google's searches. Too many businesses and "magnet sites" (sites designed only to match your query and lure you to their page to then slam you with advertising and paid links, e.g. about.com) have been messing up Google's query system. It's been much more difficult to sift through the relevant pages and the junk ones, plus the number of junk page
    • I'd say MSN is looking pretty strong, their results are usually as good as google's and the ranking usually makes more sense at least to me.
    • Actually, I think Wikipedia is getting quite a share of searches. A year ago, when I was looking for "standard information" - like the atom-weigth of an element or the capital of a country - I used Google, but now I use Wikipedia. Of course I still use a search engine for a lot of other things and will probably continue to do so. However Yahoo has become a lot better lately, so who knows what will be in 10 years?

  • Conclusive Results? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ciroknight ( 601098 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:18PM (#13130366)
    How could anyone get conclusive results without operating inside of google, and inside of yahoo? It seems to me like the *best* you can do is have a bunch of websites log what URL's they're coming from, but that's inconclusive; some users will use one search engine repeatedly just to find an article, while other's will search for the same thing across a lot of search engines.

    I just don't see how anyone could come to a result that's completely objective.

  • You mean Google is more popular... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Catiline ( 186878 ) <akrumbach@gmail.com> on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:18PM (#13130368) Homepage Journal
    Have Google searches replaced DNS for web name lookup? Not yet, you say? Then they aren't the most popular search engine yet! </sarcasm>
    • For many long sites, I do hit google and type in a couple keywords that I know will get me there through "I Feel Lucky".
    • Actually, a number of the top suggestions for different first letters on Google Suggest are for names of sites (including gmail, yahoo, 1800flowers, and 3m). Of course, Google doesn't actually resolve names for you, but they're still evidentally a popular thing to try...
    • As far as the user is concerned, I believe it has ever since the invention of the "I'm feeling lucky" button.

      Long, keyword heavy URLs appear to receive more traffic than short and easily remembered URLs as a result of their slightly improved search engine standing for those terms.

      Search engines and bookmarks... Very few people seem to type full URIs anymore.

  • Follow the money (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) * on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:19PM (#13130373) Journal
    ... so who "sponsored" (either with advertising, money, partner-deals, whatever) each of the reports.

    If the one that says Google is increasing is sponsored by Google in any way, shape, or form, it has zero useful information content. Similarly, if the other is sponsored by any of Google's competitors, it has zero useful information content. At least, IMHO.

    Simon
    • Similarly, if the one saying Google is increasing was funded by Google's competitors, they wasted their money. Also, if the one saying Google is decreasing was funded by Google, they wasted their money as well.
      • Similarly, if the one saying Google is increasing was funded by Google's competitors, they wasted their money. Also, if the one saying Google is decreasing was funded by Google, they wasted their money as well

        it is not a waste of money if a study returns results you need to know but do not want to hear.

  • Google needn't worry (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bigwavejas ( 678602 ) * on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:20PM (#13130375) Journal
    I find it interesting that MSN has 15.7%, which is entirely due to new installations of Windows setting IE's homepage to msn.com. Without that I'd bank their percentage would hover somewhere around the minus. IMO Google has no competitors in terms simplicity and results.

  • Bear Stearns using wrong metric. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:21PM (#13130390)
    > Bear Sterns quotes ComScore Networks data, which says that Google's share of searches is slipping, down to 36.9% in June 2005.

    Slashdotter observes that ComScore Networks gets a lot of its data from a piece of software called "Marketscore", which sure sounds like a form of spyware [com.com].

    Slashdotter hypothesizes that the people who prefer Google (over MSN, Yahoo, AOL, and the various "search engines" that are installed by spyware companies) are less likely to tolerate the presence of crap like "Marketscore" on their boxen.

    Slashdotter suggests that analyst from Bear Stearns ought to look closely at the source of his data and ask pointed questions as to whether or not there are variables that cannot be measured by ComScore Networks, and whether or not these variables are skewing the data he's paying for.

    • marketscore IS spyware, even tho they claim it's not.. if you google for marketscore, the first two paid links are removal tools.

      One of the really bad things marketscore does is install a certificate authority so it can proxy SSL requests without the user knowing. If they connect to a bank, or worse hippa regulated systems, marketscore gets to see all the traffic un-encrypted.

      I know several places are tracking and blocking their subnets whenever possible.

      Here's an entire paper on the thing:
      http://www.c [cornell.edu]

  • They're safe (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bifurcati ( 699683 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:22PM (#13130402) Homepage
    I know search engine preferences are fickle, but Google's got such a brand name now (not to mention it's own verb. Not that they actually want that, legally speaking...) that I think there is a bit of lock in. The biggest risk is probabaly browsers or operating systems (think Microsoft) that have like MSN as the homepage (bloated rubbish!)

    Also, with Google continuing to push into just about every market, customer loyalty will just keep increasing. I think that's something that Microsoft undervalues - people will continue to shop in the same store or search from the same people if the service is good and they really like the shop, even if they can get the same thing elsewhere, even marginally cheaper.

    Of course, I have no statistics to back that up, but neither (apparently) do the claims of these companies - so why should I worry about it either?

    • "The biggest risk is probabaly browsers or operating systems (think Microsoft) that have like MSN as the homepage (
      bloated rubbish!)"

      Yeah it's complete ad-free bloated rubbish [msn.com]. I mean RSS feeds of search results? Who are they fooling..bloated rubbish.

  • As Mark Twain once said (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Case42 ( 96020 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:22PM (#13130403)
    There are lies, damn lies and statistics. Personally I can't remember the last time I used something other than Google for a search and what other search engine has had it's name verbed in common usage? Even back in the day when AltaVista was the search engine of choice I never heard anyone say "AltaVista it".
    • That's because AltaVista has too many syllables, and is actually two words. "Google" replaces "search for" in a sentence, and has the same number of syllables but a more specific meaning, so it catches on.
    • "Personally I can't remember the last time I used something other than Google for a search...."

      The only time I used anything other than Google was when seeing which search engine would list my personal web site (Yahoo and MSN do, Google doesn't). Aside from that, nobody else comes even remotely close to the result relevence of Google.

      I think the reason my site doesn't appear on Google (even using exact naming and quotes) is because Google doesn't list sites that it hasn't encountered for a least one year
      • The fastest way to get listed with Google is to get your site name into the Open Directory Project (at least with a new low-volume site). Of course, there are issues with that, and it requires hand entry on the part of some volunteer, but at least it eventually does get listed.

        Another thing to do is just push your site onto Google manually by putting into the direct scan list. It takes a little bit of digging to find it, but it is there. Do that for some other search engines as well.

        As far as using oth

  • Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by Manip ( 656104 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:24PM (#13130414)
    "Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that."

  • Lies... Damn lies... (Score:5, Informative)

    by sterno ( 16320 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @07:26PM (#13130426) Homepage
    In the end, both numbers are probably correct according to the methodology that was used. The disparity is likely due to using vastly different methodologies.

    Perhaps they used user surveys of on-line behavior. Perhaps they used traffic reports from popular sites to see where search hits came from. There's countless ways to figure it, but seeing as I can't remember the last time I used anything but google to do a search, I'd tend to favor the larger number.
    • yeah. perhaps one counted going to the search home page. then they would count all of the people who don't know how to change their home page but type google.com in the address bar every time they want to search for something.
  • I tried that Who Links to Me [wholinkstome.com] thing and got -1 links to my site.

  • another one (Score:2, Interesting)

    by chrisxkelley ( 879631 )
    here's another that says gooogle has 48% http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2 156451 [searchenginewatch.com] nice graph, with results for many other search engines as well
  • People are still using search engines other than google.

    • Re:In other news... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Meshach ( 578918 )
      People are still using search engines other than google
      This may sound sarcastic to fellow /. folks but most of the world does not use google. They use whatever is default from their browser: msn

      The typical user does not care about open source. They do not care about os freedom, vendor dependance, or any of the other crap everyone on slashdot blabs about. They have a computer and they want to use it.

      End of story
      • "...most of the world does not use google. They use whatever is default from their browser: msn"

        The problem with that theory is that people have easy access to both, and they quickly find that MSN (and all the other search engines) suck badly compared to Google.

        Google's name spreads like wildfire to even the newest computer users, and they almost can't help themselves but use Google even if their home pages are set to MSN.

        Most of the world does use Google because it is vastly superior to everything that

  • google often doesn't work in China (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well, I often find myself using a different search enging because I get 'page contains no data' when I try to search.

    Also, the quick search tool in Firefox often doesn't work because we are automatically transferred to a Chinese version of Google. You have to select the 'English' link, then search again.

    Sometimes it just isn't worth the hassle. More and more, I am using Yahoo!.
  • Gartner, IDC and WhatHaveYa..
    What is the actual value of these companies?

    For the last 10 years I've occasionally watched some figures they spit out or some predictions they've made. For the first category, these figures are based on common knowledge (ordinary public statistics) to anyone in the industry, with a twist. The take a very vague number and from that try making it exact. For example, if statistics say there were about 1 million HDTVs sold last year, 0.5 the year before and 0.25 sold the year befo

  • Bought FUD (Score:2, Interesting)

    by omb ( 759389 )
    Who has entered the search business recently?

    Are you surpriesed to begin to see sponsored
    research and bought FUD?

  • competitors? (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by tomstdenis ( 446163 )
    What?

    I'm dead serious, I've used google for 100% of my searching since a few years. I used to use Yahoo quite a bit but Google is just faster and for the most part more relevent.

    Who are these people who use msn search, yahoo, altavisa, etc???

    Tom
  • These results tell you nothing about Google, or Yahoo, or MSN. They speak volumes about Bear Stearns, ComScore Networks, and WebSideStory.

    The announcements mean that ComScore has managed to score marketing dollars that WebSideStory hasn't (yet?). Bear Stearns promoting obviously flawed stats means they're involved, too, at one end or the other. (Did they buy the stats from CS, or did CS or its patron buy the promotion from BS?) Now we know in the future to ignore ComScore and Bear Stearns announcement

  • When I think of something - anything, image, information whatever. I just pop up my browser (it is instant on during my computer session) - and type in "g {my interest}" and it gives me ideas. Or if not I try to reconsider my search. Come on. GOOGLE IS MY SIXTH SENSE (seroiusly). Nothing can beat that - and yes, I've tried other search engines. They simply do not work.

  • Slippery stuff (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Thursday July 21, 2005 @08:25PM (#13130818) Homepage Journal
    What's Google's share of the search market?

    How many people are using Windows 2000?

    What percentage of all active computer users in the United States are on Macs?

    What percentage of "non-technical" computer users have installed Linux and use it as their primary OS?

    These are the sorts of questions that can be of vital importance to companies when they are trying to determine which markets they should be in, how they should orient their marketing, what improvements they need to make to their products, and so on. The problem is that this information is extremely difficult to pin down, which is why these analysts proliferate.

    If it's tough to get reliable data you can base decisions on, it's even more difficult to determine whether a given market analysis is worth a damn.

  • Google Owns. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Egorn ( 82375 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @08:35PM (#13130884) Homepage
    When I first read the report on the 19th (Google - 36.9%, Yahoo! - 30.4%, MSN - 15.7%), I called BS. Here's my reasoning. Just before Star Wars was released, I held the number one search spot for "Star Wars Trailer" (no quotes) on ALL three mentioned search engines for a week. I got a million hits in about 2 days. 69% were Google, 14% from Yahoo and 2% from MSN.

    I later moved down to 4th in Google but held my place in Y!/MSN. The scores shifted very slightly but remained in favor of Google. Unless this proves that Star Wars geeks are primarily Google users, it proves the surveys innaccurate in favor of MSN and Yahoo!.

    That's my 0.02.

    • Re:Google Owns. (Score:3, Informative)

      by walt-sjc ( 145127 )
      FWIW, that's pretty close to the sites I've been working with that get several million hits a day consistantly. Our users are (depending on what site the user goes to) either general consumers or government / educational users so we get a pretty good mix. A third site is targeted towards large enterprise.

      That report does not seem to mesh with reality. I'm actually surprised that MSN is so low due to the IE default home page - but it is.
    • My statistics are even more extreme with Google over 95% and both Yahoo and MSN neglectable.

      For Yahoo the main explanation seems to be that their search results are so old. They look very much like what Google might have given 3 years ago - including sites that are now dead or have moved. My site is younger so they largely overlook it.

      MSN search probably just has very few users...
  • You have to look at others too...

    It is summertime so sales are down by 80% in some cases.......

    so yes searches and traffic is down very badly ....

    I live from online sales and work and summertime shows on my wallet :)

  • The right one is... "What percentage of first page results are not related at all, fake search engine bait, paid for, or otherwise completely irrelivant?"

    Answer: 95% and increasing fast.

    Google is becoming useless, as I have to use some very complicated queries to find even simple data. Rememeber the good old days when AltaVista was at 100%?
  • leaving rivals far behind
    ...others? Like, as in, other search engines?? Anyone got a link to such at thing?
  • I mean, isn't that what we all do at work? ;P

  • Studies like this are useless without detailed information about exactly what's being measured. For example, I'd really like any of these sources to define what they mean by "search". Searching using Google could mean the use of Google Answers [google.com], Google Directory [google.com], Google Groups [google.com], Google Images [google.com], Google Maps [google.com], Google News [google.com], Google Scholar [google.com], or..... Google Web [google.com]. This doesn't even include other services such as Gmail and desktop searches, where people mostly search their own content using Google.

    A few years a

  • If the stock price is any indicator, one couldn't come up with an answer either.

    Google stock (GOOG) ended the trading day up (by 6 tenths of a percent I think), but after trading sank greatly. We'll have to see how it opens tomorrow to know for sure.

    Either way, it's tough to say. Even if the stock is doing well, it doesn't necessarily mean that the company as a whole is.

    Personally, I'm on the fence just as much. I love the company, but I just can't believe how it's trading/valued at the corner of Wal

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