Google's search lead extends

Of the almost 12 billion searches performed by Americans in July, Google accounted for just over 7 billion, cementing their lead - if there was ever any doubt - in the search wars. According to comScore's monthly report, Google's search lead bounced up only a few-hundredths of a percentage point.

by Kristina Knight

ComScore found that Google now accounts for nearly 62% of searches with Yahoo a distant second, accounting for just over 20% of searches. Microsoft Sites grew to nearly 9% of the search market and the Ask Network accounted for less than 5% of the search market. Rounding out the top five search positions was AOL with 4.2% of the search market.

How can marketers put this information to use? By knowing what consumers are searching for when they hit those popular search engines. According to Hitwise research, traffic to several popular sectors is brought in via a search engine. For the Health and Medical category, about 45% of traffic is driven from a search query; for the Travel sector about 34% of traffic comes from a search query and for Shopping/Classified sites about 25% of traffic is from search.

Because so many consumers are still finding the content and information they need via search, the marketing platforms are still a very viable form of advertising and can be lucrative. Especially for CPG brands, researchers find that paid search is likely to bring in many more in-market consumers than other forms of advertising.