Yahoo Search Growing Faster than Google

November 21st, 2006 by Loren Baker, Editor | 6 Comments

According to a recent study from Nielsen//Netratings, Yahoo & Ask.com are growing faster than Google in terms of search engine usage.

While Google still undoubtedly holds the number one spot for the amount of searches at over 3 billion searches in the past year, or 49.6% of the search engine market share; Yahoo search usage grew more rapidly.

Yahoo search usage grew at the rate of 30% last year, while Google grew at 23%. In terms of search usage growth, Ask.com showed a 25% growth index over the past twelve months.

* Yahoo! Search 30%
* Ask.com Search 25%
* Google Search 23%
* AOL Search 1.9%
* MSN/Windows Live Search -8%

So, why would Yahoo search be growing faster than Google?

There could be a number of reasons stemming from more and more Google products not being centered specifically around search to the integration of search throughout the Yahoo network (think Yahoo News or Sports), which attracts more traffic and pageviews than Google.

The success of Yahoo Answers in 2006 could also be a major factor, as the question & answer service has attracted more users to Yahoo’s social media structure.

Yahoo search also played a role in MySpace pre-August Google partnership. Did the early mad MySpace growth numbers effect Yahoo’s 2006 growth?

Will Yahoo ever catch Google in terms of searches? Given that Google search usage is more than double of that than Yahoo, not in the near future.

But, if Yahoo continues to re-searchify its network, build on its social media offerings, and successfully monetize search via its new Yahoo Search Marketing platform.

Comments

6 responses so far ↓

raju lamichhane on Nov 21, 2006 at 2:38 pm

msn.com is the best search engine
i always use to search any kind of web in msn.com
so i love msn
Ahmed Bilal on Nov 21, 2006 at 4:25 pm

ummm…

correct me if I’m wrong.

I did some calculations, and here’s what I found:

Google: 50% market share, 3 billion searches in the last year.
Yahoo: 30% market shares, so 1.8 billion searches in the last year.

Now Google’s search volume has increase by 23%, while Yahoo’s search volume wentup by 30%.

Good news for Yahoo?

Not really.

If you calculate the actual numbers…

Google’s search volume increased by 560 million searches.
Yahoo’s search volume increased by 415 million searches.

Statistics can be misleading, no?

Like I said, correct me if I’m wrong :)
Ralph Ruyters on Nov 24, 2006 at 12:35 pm

You are wrong indeed: You calculated the amount of actual searches, while the rapport is about the growth of the actual searches. The 560 million searches from Google come from a broader base, but the speed with which it’s growing (23%) not holds the speed of Yahoo. I think it’s that.
Brian May on Dec 5, 2006 at 9:25 am

I think Ahmed is right. By having a larger percentage, it is more difficult to grow. So the stats are misleading.

Let’s use money. If I have $1 and I grow at 30%, at the end of the year I will have $1.30. But if I have $2 and grow at only 20%, at the end of the year I will have $2.40, thus grow at a slower rate, but actual increase was greater.
SEM Times on Mar 11, 2007 at 9:59 am

Yahoo growing faster than Google. Very suprising!