Hitwise: Google's search share continues to grow

It's no big surprise. Google accounted for almost 73% of all U.S. searches conducted in April, according to recent data from Hitwise.

by Helen Leggatt

Search engines continue to be the primary navigational tool of the Internet, and Google continues way ahead of the pack. Just fewer than 73% (72.74%) of all searches carried out online in the U.S. in April this year were via Google.

The search engine behemoth's competitors' shares are miniscule by comparison. Yahoo Search is Google's nearest competitor with 16.27%, MSN Search managed 5.68% and Ask.com received 3.95%. The remaining 49 search engines on Hitwise's list make up just 1.36% of U.S. searches.

Hitwise continued to observe the trend for longer search queries. Instead of using just 1 or 2 words, searchers are now employing upwards of 3, perhaps indicating that they are finding less value in results presented when using less and subsequently refining those results with the additional of more keywords.

The YoY change in search query length is:

• One word: -3%
• Two words: -5%
• Three words: +1%
• Four words: +3%
• Five words: +4%
• Six words: +5%
• Seven words: +8%
• Eight or more words: +18%

Tags: Ask.com, Google, Hitwise, keywords, length, MSN, search engine, search query, search share, Yahoo