comScore Releases March 2011 US Search Engine Rankings

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, released its monthly comScore qSearch  analysis of the U.S. search marketplace. Google Sites led the explicit core search market in March with 65.7 percent of search queries conducted.

U.S. Explicit Core Search

Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in March with 65.7 percent market share (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 15.7 percent and Microsoft sites with 13.9 percent (up 0.3 percentage points). Ask Network accounted for 3.1 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.6 percent.

comScore Explicit Core Search Share Report*
March 2011 vs. February 2011
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Explicit Core Search Share (%)
Feb-11 Mar-11 Point Change
Total Explicit Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Google Sites 65.4% 65.7% 0.3
Yahoo! Sites 16.1% 15.7% -0.4
Microsoft Sites 13.6% 13.9% 0.3
Ask Network 3.2% 3.1% -0.1
AOL, Inc. 1.7% 1.6% -0.1

*“Explicit Core Search” excludes contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.

More than 16.9 billion explicit core searches were conducted in March. Google Sites ranked first with 11.1 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.7 billion, Microsoft Sites with 2.4 billion, Ask Network with 520 million and AOL, Inc. with 272 million.

comScore Explicit Core Search Query Report
March 2011 vs. February 2011
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)
Feb-11 Mar-11 Percent Change
Total Explicit Core Search 15,445 16,940 10%
Google Sites 10,096 11,123 10%
Yahoo! Sites 2,485 2,662 7%
Microsoft Sites 2,106 2,362 12%
Ask Network 491 520 6%
AOL, Inc. 267 272 2%

U.S. Total Core Search

Google Sites accounted for 64.1 percent of total core search queries conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 18.0 percent and Microsoft Sites with 13.6 percent. Ask Network comprised 2.8 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.4 percent.

comScore Total Core Search Share Report*
March 2011 vs. February 2011
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Total Core Search Share (%)
Feb-11 Mar-11 Point Change
Total Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Google Sites 64.9% 64.1% -0.8
Yahoo! Sites 17.3% 18.0% 0.7
Microsoft Sites 13.4% 13.6% 0.2
Ask Network 2.9% 2.8% -0.1
AOL, Inc. 1.6% 1.4% -0.2

* “Total Core Search” is based on the five major search engines, including partner searches, cross-channel searches and contextual searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the
core domain of the five search engines are not included in these numbers.

Americans conducted 18.9 billion total core search queries in March. Google Sites ranked first with 12.1 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.4 billion and Microsoft Sites with 2.6 billion.

comScore Total Core Search Query Report
March 2011 vs. February 2011
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Total Core Search Queries (MM)
Feb-11 Mar-11 Percent Change
Total Core Search 16,918 18,886 12%
Google Sites 10,973 12,113 10%
Yahoo! Sites 2,922 3,405 17%
Microsoft Sites 2,259 2,576 14%
Ask Network 491 520 6%
AOL, Inc. 274 272 -1%

“Powered By” Reporting

In order to accurately represent the continued evolution of the search landscape, comScore is providing insight into the share of algorithmic explicit searches that are powered by Google and Bing, and branded as such to the consumer. Google’s “powered by” share is composed of searches conducted at Google entities, as well as branded searches at AOL and Ask. Bing’s “powered by” share is composed of searches conducted at Microsoft entities as well as branded Yahoo! entities.

In March, 68.2 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google, while 26.4 percent of searches were powered by Bing organic results.

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