September 2010 US search engine rankings
The September 2010 qSearch figures reflect the impact of Google Instant Search, Google's new feature that delivers results in real-time while users type their query. To learn more about how comScore is measuring search activity as users engage with Google Instant Search, please read our recent blog post on the subject: blog.comscore.com/2010/10/comscore_september_qsearch.html.
US Explicit Core Search
Google sites led the US explicit core search market in September with 66.1% market share, followed by Yahoo! sites with 16.7% and Microsoft sites with 11.2%. Ask Network captured 3.7% of explicit core searches, followed by AOL LLC Network with 2.3%.
| comScore Explicit Core Search Share Report* September 2010 vs. August 2010 Total US - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Core Search Entity | Explicit Core Search Share (%) | ||
| Aug-10 | Sep-10 | Point Change | |
| Total Explicit Core Search | 100.0% | 100.0% | N/A |
| Google sites | 65.4% | 66.1% | 0.7 |
| Yahoo! sites | 17.4% | 16.7% | -0.7 |
| Microsoft sites | 11.1% | 11.2% | 0.1 |
| Ask Network | 3.8% | 3.7% | -0.1 |
| AOL LLC Network | 2.3% | 2.3% | 0.0 |
*"Explicit Core Search" excludes contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.
More than 16.0 billion explicit core searches were conducted in September. Google sites ranked first with 10.6 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! sites in second with 2.7 billion and Microsoft sites in third with 1.8 billion. Ask Network accounted for 593 million explicit core searches followed by AOL LLC Network with 362 million.
| comScore Explicit Core Search Query Report September 2010 vs. August 2010 Total US - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Core Search Entity | Explicit Core Search Queries (MM) | ||
| Aug-10 | Sep-10 | Percent Change | |
| Total Explicit Core Search | 15,695 | 16,021 | 2% |
| Google sites | 10,259 | 10,593 | 3% |
| Yahoo! sites | 2,728 | 2,682 | -2% |
| Microsoft sites | 1,744 | 1,791 | 3% |
| Ask Network | 598 | 593 | -1% |
| AOL LLC Network | 366 | 362 | -1% |
US Total Core Search
Google sites accounted for 62.9% of total core search queries conducted, followed by Yahoo! sites with 19.2% and Microsoft sites with 12.5%. Ask Network captured 3.4% of total search queries, followed by AOL LLC with 2.0%. Google's share increased by 2.4 percentage points, primarily due to the impact of Instant Search.
| comScore Total Core Search Share Report* September 2010 vs. August 2010 Total US - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Core Search Entity | Total Core Search Share (%) | ||
| Aug-10 | Sep-10 | Point Change | |
| Total Core Search | 100.0% | 100.0% | N/A |
| Google sites | 60.5% | 62.9% | 2.4 |
| Yahoo! sites | 21.0% | 19.2% | -1.8 |
| Microsoft sites | 12.8% | 12.5% | -0.3 |
| Ask Network | 3.5% | 3.4% | -0.1 |
| AOL LLC Network | 2.2% | 2.0% | -0.2 |
"Total Core Search" is based on the five major search engines, including partner searches, cross-channel searches and contextual searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in these numbers.
Americans conducted 17.7 billion total core search queries in September with Google sites leading with 11.1 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! sites with 3.4 billion and Microsoft sites with 2.2 billion.
| comScore Total Core Search Query Report September 2010 vs. August 2010 Total US - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Core Search Entity | Total Core Search Queries (MM) | ||
| Aug-10 | Sep-10 | Percent Change | |
| Total Core Search | 16,950 | 17,671 | 4% |
| Google sites | 10,259 | 11,119 | 8% |
| Yahoo! sites | 3,562 | 3,394 | -5% |
| Microsoft sites | 2,166 | 2,204 | 2% |
| Ask Network | 598 | 593 | -1% |
| AOL LLC Network | 366 | 362 | -1% |
"Powered By" reporting
As a part of comScore commitment to represent the continued evolution of the search landscape accurately, beginning this month, comScore is providing insight into the share of algorithmic Explicit searches that are powered by Google and Bing, and branded as such to the consumer. Google's "powered by" share is composed of searches conducted at Google entities, as well as AOL and most of Ask's MyWebSearch. Bing's "powered by" share is composed of searches conducted at Bing entities as well as Yahoo! Web Search, Yahoo! Image Search and Yahoo! Video Search. Some of Yahoo!'s in-channel searches, such as movies and finance, are still provided by Yahoo!
In September, 69.1% of searches carried organic search results from Google, while 23.5% of searches were powered by Bing organic results.