Search Engine Optimization

This can be a good way of presenting data to marketers, CEOs and other high profile clients with deep pockets.

ComScore released a report for January 2008 indicating search market share in United States.

January 2008 Stats:

Google: 58.5% (7.7 billion searches)

Yahoo: 22.2% (2.5 billion searches)

Microsoft (MSN, Live): 9.8% (1.1 billion)

AOL(Google Powered): 4.9% (903 million)

Ask: 4.5%

Comparison to December 2007 Report

From the report we can see that Google gained 0.1% of search share, while Yahoo lost 0.7% in Comparison to December 2007 report. Microsoft kept it’s current market share at 9.8%, while AOL increased by 0.3% and Ask by 0.2%.

We can see that lost Yahoo share was divided between Google, AOL and Ask. Yahoo acting as a portal, mostly lost share to Google powered AOL, as opposed to Google directly. AOL and Yahoo offer very similar portal features apart from search, hence increase in AOL’s share is indicator to Google’s higher quality search technology, to some extent.

December 2007 Stats:

Google: 58.4 % (7.2 billion searches)

Yahoo: 22.9 % (2.4 billion searches)

Microsoft (MSN, Live): 9.8 % (963 million)

AOL(Google Powered): 4.6 % (784 million)

Ask: 4.3 %

Apart from increased search shares, number of searches in United States increased by 0.9 billion(900 million), from 9.6 billion in December 2007 to 10.5 billion searches in January 2008.

It was estimated that one present of search market is valued at around $1 with proper monetization in place.

Estimate of Physical Search Users in the US and Searches Per User

According to internetworldstats.com there are:

215,088,545 internet users in United States.

From this number we can calculate approximate number of search engine users in US and their margins to search engines. Of course it is essential to consider that majority does not search everyday and that some internet users do not use search engines at all. Those are calculations assuming that each American internet user uses search engines, which is not too far from the truth.

215,088,545 = 100% (the actual number is 99.9%, where 0.01% represents other search engines, but since this is an estimate, we included the 0.01% in calculations)

From January 2008 Stats by ComScore:

Google 58.5% = 125,826,798 users.

• With 7.7 billion searches this represents:61.1 search per Google user per month,or 2 searches per day.

AOL(Google Powered): 4.9% = 10.539.338

• With 903 million searches this represents:85.6 search per AOL user per month oror 2.8 search per day

It also correct to combine Google with AOL search share in favor of Google, to estimate total Google usage, because AOL share would look different if it was powered by Microsoft or Yahoo.

Google + AOL : 63.4% = 136,366,137

• With 8.603 billion searches this represents:63 search per Google Search user per month or 2.1 search per day

Yahoo: 22.2% = 47,749,656 users

• With 2.5 billion searches this represents:52.3 search per Yahoo! user per month or 1.7 searches per day

Microsoft (MSN, Live): 9.8% = 21,078,677

• With 1.1 billion searches this represents:52.1 search per Microsoft user per month or 1.7 searches per day

From calculations we can see that on average people search two times per day. Of cource not everyone searches everyday. Assuming that an average search engine user uses search engines twice per month we can calculate:

Google + AOL: 61.1

Yahoo: 52.3

Microsoft: 52.1

55.1 per month or 27 searches, twice per month.

Search is Strong - Spin That Baby

You can also include stuff like general keyword research for the clients, to show number of searches in the industry, user spread, etc. It’s a matter of imagination, as marketers and big exec boys love stats and nice spreadsheets, as plenty of good numbers can turn them on.