As an online marketer, it is important to keep track of the search engines and how each one is doing in the war for more share of the market. Don’t always assume that Google is always going to be on top. While Google currently commands more than 66% of the market, anything can happen. As a matter of fact, analysts recently reported that we could see the end of Google’s domination if the search giant’s mobile advertising efforts continue to falter. With more people moving to mobile devices, Google needs to catch up if it hopes to retain its search engine market share dominance. As a search engine marketer, you should make an effort to keep an eye on the search engines at all times. Armed with this information, you will always know where to focus your online marketing efforts.
Search Engine Market Share in August
In order to accurately assess search engine market share data, we should look at what the market share looked like just a couple months prior. In August of this year, Google still held the top spot at 66.7%. Microsoft held a 15.9% share, Yahoo! a 12.2% share and Ask and AOL fell behind at 3.2% and 1.7% respectively.
Search Engine Share in September
Now let’s analyze September’s data to see if we can determine any positive or negative search engine market share trends. In September, Google rose .3% to capture 66.7% of the market share. Microsoft’s Bing stayed the same at 15.9%. Yahoo! dropped .6% to rest at 12.2% and Ask rose to 3.5% and AOL rose .1% to 1.8%.
These results come from the ComScore Explicit Core Search Share Report, which is launched monthly and determines the market share for each of the search engines available to search users. This is a handy list for analysts, vendors and of course online marketers. While everyone is focused on the big G, you should also be looking at the other contenders who could take the top spot one day.
We can see how Google continues to dominate, with Bing in a far away second. Anything can happen, however. When you study the search engine market share, you have to think about current events, trends and technological innovations. All of these play a part in how and why people use search engines.
For example, new mobile devices could cause more people to use Bing over Google one day. That is a theory that has popped up only recently. Many of us can’t imagine a world where Google disappears just like MySpace or Yahoo!. Remember when Yahoo! was the king of search? Do you know anyone who uses Yahoo! for search? Some people still do, according to the search engine market share results, but not enough to call it the king of anything. 
Google is king and if the company does everything correctly, it will stay that way.
Others feel that the trends represented in these search engine market share trends are based on the seasons. In the summer time, more people tend to use Bing/Yahoo! in the summertime when Internet usage as a whole dies down. Then, in the fall Google and all other search traffic will pick up. The bottom line is that more people use Google today than any other search engine on the market. Could that change tomorrow? You bet it could. This is why you will always want to search for these regular ComScore search engine market share trend reports so that you always have your finger on the pulse of search engine users everywhere.
Keep an Eye on Current Search Engine Market Trends
If you hope to succeed at online marketing, you would do well to focus most of your efforts on Google’s search engine. Google maintains nearly 70% of the search engine market. This means you will want to get your sites and other online marketing materials to rank prominently in Google’s search engine before you start paying attention to other, less often used search engines. Do not negate the other search engines, however.
What would you do if this holiday shopping season suddenly saw Google fall off its pedestal? Would you be prepared to market your websites on the new king of the search engine market – Bing or Yahoo! or even AOL? Pay attention to search engine market share trends and you’ll always be prepared for the future of search engines, whatever that future may hold. If you don’t study market share trends, you could one day find your listings on a search engine that is nothing more than yesterday’s news.
