Nielsen//Netrating Ranks Top 10 Search Engines
September 9th, 2007 Posted in NewsNielsen//Netrating, a leader in global internet marketing research, has ranked the top 10 search engines as of July, this year.
Topping the list is Google with 53.3 percent of total searches followed by Yahoo with only 20.1 percent of total searches. MSN or Windows Live trails behind by 13.6 percent followed by AOL at 1.8 percent, Ask.com at 1.8 percent, and My Web Search at 0.9 percent. Next in rank is BellSouth at 0.5 percent and Comcast at 0.5 percent. Dogpile has entered the top search engines ranking at 0.3 percent together with My Way at 0.3 percent. Other search engines combined are at 3.4 percent.
Earlier this year, comScore Networks, a credible media research agency, had Google on top of its list. The results, however, reflects the search market share of the company in the United States only.
ComScore results points that Google gained 1.4 points for it to reach 49.7 percent of the American search market. The leading search engine was followed by Yahoo who dropped with less than one point to 26.8 percent. Microsoft ranked next at 10.3 percent also with a less than one-point drop.
Results indicated a high number of U.S.-based Internet users preferring Google over other search engines. While Google has 3.6 billion search queries, Yahoo has two billion followed by Microsoft at 757 million searches.
Hitwise, a renowned internet marketing research firm, also confirms this in their study conducted across the globe with more than 25 million Internet users. These web consumers, says the report, searches over 500,000 websites across 160 industries.
The data shows a remarkable 62.26 percent of all U.S. searches through Google with Yahoo at 20.26 percent, Microsoft as well as MSN and Live.com at 8.46 percent and Ask.com at 3.69 percent. The results were gathered through opt-in panels and ISP data partnerships.
Google may have ranked top in terms of search use, but it definitely seconds Yahoo when it comes to customer satisfaction. This was disclosed in a joint e-business report released by ForeSee Results, a marketing research firm specializing in measuring customer satisfaction in both online and offline business environments, and the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index or ACSI.
According to the report the internet marketing sector experienced a dive of 1.7 percent to a total score of 75.2 on the ACSI 100 point scale. The study encompassed the web categories of search engines, news, information, and portals.
Google’s customer satisfaction ratings dropped at 3.7 percent from 81 in 2006 to only 78 in 2007. On the other hand, Yahoo’s score rose to 6.8 percent from 76 of the previous year to 1.9 in the present.
“Google may be on top of search engines in all major surveys conducted, but web users are seeing Google the same way they did three years ago,” ForeSee Results CEO, Larry Reed said.
He added that Google’s word of mouth strategy may have kicked their search off, but it has not yet capitalized on its applications such as Gmail, Google Earth, and Google Docs and Spreadsheets.
Reed has never put it more sharply when he said, “It might be time to step back and grow the market share in these applications.”
Google is sure to have a lot of upgrading to do.
