comScore Releases July 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 July with 65.1 percent of search queries conducted.

U.S. Explicit Core Search

Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in July with 65.1 percent market share, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.1 percent (up 0.2 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 14.4 percent. Ask Network accounted for 2.9 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.5 percent (up 0.1 percentage points).

comScore Explicit Core Search Share Report*
July 2011 vs. June 2011 
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Explicit Core Search Share (%)
Jun-11 Jul-11 Point Change
Total Explicit Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Google Sites 65.5% 65.1% -0.4
Yahoo! Sites 15.9% 16.1% 0.2
Microsoft Sites 14.4% 14.4% 0.0
Ask Network 2.9% 2.9% 0.0
AOL, Inc. 1.4% 1.5% 0.1

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

More than 17.1 billion explicit core searches were conducted in July, up 3 percent versus the prior month. Google Sites ranked first with 11.2 billion searches (up 2 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.8 billion (up 4 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 2.5 billion (up 3 percent). Ask Network delivered 494 million searches (up 3 percent), followed by AOL, Inc. with 251 million (up 5 percent).

comScore Explicit Core Search Query Report
July 2011 vs. June 2011 
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)
Jun-11 Jul-11 Percent Change
Total Explicit Core Search 16,720 17,141 3%
Google Sites 10,948 11,158 2%
Yahoo! Sites 2,650 2,764 4%
Microsoft Sites 2,405 2,473 3%
Ask Network 478 494 3%
AOL, Inc. 239 251 5%

U.S. Total Core Search

Google Sites accounted for 64.8 percent of total core search queries conducted (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 17.9 percent (up 0.4 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 13.4 percent. Ask Network comprised 2.6 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.3 percent.

comScore Total Core Search Share Report*
July 2011 vs. June 2011 
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Total Core Search Share (%)
Jun-11 Jul-11 Point Change
Total Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Google Sites 64.5% 64.8% 0.3
Yahoo! Sites 17.5% 17.9% 0.4
Microsoft Sites 14.1% 13.4% -0.7
Ask Network 2.6% 2.6% 0.0
AOL, Inc. 1.3% 1.3% 0.0

* “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 19.2 billion total core search queries in July (up 3 percent). Google Sites ranked first with 12.5 billion searches (up 3 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.4 billion (up 5 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 2.6 billion.

comScore Total Core Search Query Report
July 2011 vs. June 2011 
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Total Core Search Queries (MM)
Jun-11 Jul-11 Percent Change
Total Core Search 18,721 19,218 3%
Google Sites 12,079 12,456 3%
Yahoo! Sites 3,277 3,444 5%
Microsoft Sites 2,647 2,573 -3%
Ask Network 478 494 3%
AOL, Inc. 239 251 5%

“Powered By” Reporting

As a part of comScore’s commitment to accurately represent the continued evolution of the search landscape, comScore is providing insight into the share of organic Core Explicit searches that are powered by Google and Bing.

In July, 67.2 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google (vs. 67.6 percent in June) while 26.8 percent of searches were powered by Bing (vs. 26.6 percent in June).

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