comScore Releases August 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 August with 64.8 percent of search queries conducted.

U.S. Explicit Core Search

Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in August with 64.8 percent market share, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.3 percent (up 0.2 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 14.7 percent (up 0.3 percentage points). Ask Network accounted for 3.0 percent of explicit core searches (up 0.1 percentage points), followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.3 percent.

comScore Explicit Core Search Share Report*
August 2011 vs. July 2011 
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Explicit Core Search Share (%)
Jul-11 Aug-11 Point Change
Total Explicit Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Google Sites 65.1% 64.8% -0.3
Yahoo! Sites 16.1% 16.3% 0.2
Microsoft Sites 14.4% 14.7% 0.3
Ask Network 2.9% 3.0% 0.1
AOL, Inc. 1.5% 1.3% -0.2

*“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 August, with Google Sites ranking first with 11.1 billion searches. Yahoo! Sites came in second with 2.8 billion (up 1 percent), followed by Microsoft Sites with 2.5 billion (up 1 percent). Ask Network delivered 510 million searches (up 3 percent), followed by AOL, Inc. with 229 million.

comScore Explicit Core Search Query Report
August 2011 vs. July 2011 
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)
Jul-11 Aug-11 Percent Change
Total Explicit Core Search 17,141 17,122 0%
Google Sites 11,158 11,090 -1%
Yahoo! Sites 2,764 2,782 1%
Microsoft Sites 2,473 2,510 1%
Ask Network 494 510 3%
AOL, Inc. 251 229 -9%

U.S. Total Core Search

Google Sites accounted for 64.4 percent of total core search queries conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 18.5 percent (up 0.6 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 13.3 percent. Ask Network comprised 2.6 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.2 percent.

comScore Total Core Search Share Report*
August 2011 vs. July 2011 
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Total Core Search Share (%)
Jul-11 Aug-11 Point Change
Total Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Google Sites 64.8% 64.4% -0.4
Yahoo! Sites 17.9% 18.5% 0.6
Microsoft Sites 13.4% 13.3% -0.1
Ask Network 2.6% 2.6% 0.0
AOL, Inc. 1.3% 1.2% -0.1

* “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 19.5 billion total core search queries in August (up 1 percent). Google Sites ranked first with 12.5 billion searches (up 1 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.6 billion (up 5 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 2.6 billion (up 1 percent).

comScore Total Core Search Query Report
August 2011 vs. July 2011 
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Total Core Search Queries (MM)
Jul-11 Aug-11 Percent Change
Total Core Search 19,218 19,482 1%
Google Sites 12,456 12,541 1%
Yahoo! Sites 3,444 3,610 5%
Microsoft Sites 2,573 2,592 1%
Ask Network 494 510 3%
AOL, Inc. 251 229 -9%

“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 August, 66.8 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google (vs. 67.2 percent in July) while 27.1 percent of searches were powered by Bing (vs. 26.8 percent in July).

About comScore
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