Google and Bing search market share went down in March 2010, while Yahoo and Ask.com have gained a significant percentage of the search market share, according to new figures from Experian Hitwise.
Google and Bing search share were down by 1%, accounting for 69.97% and 9.62% of all the US searches, respectively. Yahoo! Search rose by 3% to 15.04% and Ask.com’s searches increased by 21%, to 3.44% from 2.84%.
Longer search queries, averaging searches of five to more than eight words in length, were flat between February 2010 and March 2010, while searches of eight or more words increased 1%. The shorter search queries, those averaging one to four words long remained flat from month to month during the same time period. One-word searches comprised the majority of searches, amounting to 22.98 % of all queries, according to the report.
According to Experian Hitwise, search engines continue to be the primary way internet users navigate to key industry categories. Comparing February 2010 with March 2010, automotive, business and finance, entertainment, news and media, shopping and social networking categories showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.
Google sent the most visits to the four categories, Automotive, health, shopping and travel. Google’s percentage of upstream traffic grew for the automotive, shopping and travel categories, while Yahoo! Search saw gains in the automotive category. Bing saw double-digit growth among three categories, including a 125% increase in the health category.
