Market research firm comScore released its search engine market share for March 2012, and SEO marketers are in for no great surprises – Google is still king of the queries.
As usual, Google dominated the industry in the month, claiming 66.4 percent of all search queries. This figure represents no change for the company compared to February. To an extent, Google would like to see consistent growth. However, avoiding any losses is critical for the company given the discussion surrounding its privacy policy.
The biggest loser for the month was Yahoo, which dropped from 13.8 in February to 13.7 in March, comScore found. Although this may seem like a small loss, the company has struggled to maintain users. A recent AllThingsD report details a memo from Yahoo about how it is trying to re-imagine its search experience, but many speculate Yahoo’s search service won’t remain a viable player in the market.
With Google and Bing remaining stagnant in terms of growth, it appears the 0.1 percent of search queries Yahoo lost went to AOL, which grew from 1.5 percent market share in February to 1.6 in March.
Based on yearly comparisons, Google picked up 10 percent market share from March 2011. Yahoo’s share fell 5 percent from a year ago, while Bing gained 19 percent.
Google’s share of total search queries has consistently hovered around 65 to 66 percent in recent months. Brafton recently reported that 74 percent of consumers say they regularly use Google for searching.
