comScore released its August 2009 search numbers and while a lot of people, especially Microsoft fanboys, will be jumping for joy as Microsoft gained core search share by 0.4% to 9.3% and Google dropped by 0.1% to 64.6, I for one don't see the joy. In fact, comScore's report show's Google's dominance is quite secure and for the moment quite safe.
You see the numbers that everyone reports is a comScore metric called core searches which is basically searches off of the main search site like Google.com. However, as any Google fanboy (like me) will tell you, Google is much more than searches off of Google.com. It includes Gmail. Google Docs, Google Books, News, and of course a little known site called YouTube. And, that's where things get very interesting.
Look a little lower in the report and you'll see something called Expanded search which lists out all search activity including video and search activity on the non-core sites. It is this report which shows how dominant Google's search strategy is and why Microsoft has a long, long way to go to catch a giant.
- Google isn't just 7x larger like the core report shows; all Google properties versus all Microsoft properties is TEN TIMES LARGER THAN MICROSOFT. Why do you think Google gives you all of those products for free?
- YouTube while losing some share in August is the second largest search property around. YouTube is so large that it is 28% larger than Yahoo and twice as large as Bing. Think about that for a second, if Bing is hugely successful they'd have to knock of Yahoo and YouTube before Google even blinks.
- You can look at the rest of the sites on the list, but they are so small it really doesn't matter much but they are interesting. For example, eBay and AOL losing share and Facebook is growing quickly probably driven by their huge growth.
Yes Bing is an exciting product. Yes Microsoft is spending $100 million in advertising to boost their search but right now all they have generated is a little buzz and some excitement. I haven't noticed a blip in the amount of paid search advertising that I've run for clients and I've tried. I also doubt Google has noticed a blip in their search activity. In fact, I bet Google is more concerned with expanded search and in that case, Google is STILL growing. Microsoft isn't even close right now.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
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