RESTON, VA, May 11, 2011 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly Comscore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace. Google Sites led the explicit core search market in April with 65.4 percent of search queries conducted.
The April 2011 qSearch data reflect the impact of Yahoo! Search Direct, Yahoo!’s new feature that delivers search results in real-time while users type their query. Yahoo! Search Direct was available only on Yahoo! U.S. Web Search for the month of April.
U.S. Explicit Core Search
Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in April with 65.4 percent market share, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 15.9 percent (up 0.2 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 14.1 percent (up 0.2 percentage points). Ask Network accounted for 3.0 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.5 percent.
Comscore Explicit Core Search Share Report*April 2011 vs. March 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University LocationsSource: Comscore qSearch
Core Search Entity
Explicit Core Search Share (%)
Mar-11
Apr-11
Point Change
Total Explicit Core Search
100.0%
N/A
Google Sites
65.7%
65.4%
-0.3
Yahoo! Sites
15.7%
15.9%
0.2
Microsoft Sites
13.9%
14.1%
Ask Network
3.1%
3.0%
-0.1
AOL, Inc.
1.6%
1.5%
*“Explicit Core Search” excludes contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.
More than 16.2 billion explicit core searches were conducted in April. Google Sites ranked first with 10.7 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.6 billion, Microsoft Sites with 2.3 billion, Ask Network with 491 million and AOL, Inc. with 248 million.
Comscore Explicit Core Search Query ReportApril 2011 vs. March 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University LocationsSource: Comscore qSearch
Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)
Percent Change
16,940
16,277
-4%
11,123
10,652
2,662
2,584
-3%
2,362
2,301
520
491
-6%
272
248
-9%
U.S. Total Core Search
Google Sites accounted for 64.2 percent of total core search queries conducted (up 0.1 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 17.9 percent and Microsoft Sites with 13.8 percent (up 0.2 percentage points). Ask Network comprised 2.7 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.4 percent.
Comscore Total Core Search Share Report*April 2011 vs. March 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University LocationsSource: Comscore qSearch
Total Core Search Share (%)
Total Core Search
64.1%
64.2%
0.1
18.0%
17.9%
13.6%
13.8%
2.8%
2.7%
1.4%
0.0
* “Total Core Search” is based on the five major search engines, includingpartner searches, cross-channel searches and contextual searches. Searchesfor mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on thecore domain of the five search engines are not included in these numbers.
Americans conducted more than 18.0 billion total core search queries in April. Google Sites ranked first with 11.6 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.2 billion and Microsoft Sites with 2.5 billion.
Comscore Total Core Search Query ReportApril 2011 vs. March 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University LocationsSource: Comscore qSearch
Total Core Search Queries (MM)
18,886
18,089
12,113
11,609
3,405
3,239
-5%
2,576
2,501
“Powered By” Reporting
In order to accurately represent the continued evolution of the search landscape, 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 branded searches at AOL and Ask. Bing’s “powered by” share is composed of searches conducted at Microsoft entities as well as branded Yahoo! entities.
In April, 67.8 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google, while 26.5 percent of searches were powered by Bing organic results.
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Contact:Adam LellaComscore, Inc.+1 (312) 775-6474press@comscore.com