Hitwise finds Google’s share against all sites grew 30.9% over the past 8 months.
Hitwise, an online competitive
intelligence service, released the latest U.S. Industry Report on the Online
Search sector.
Key highlights from this report
include:
* The top three search engines, Google,
Yahoo! Search and MSN Search, account for 5.5% of all U.S. Internet visits.
* During the period of August 2003 to
April 2004, Google experienced a growth in U.S. market share against all sites
of 30.9%. During that same timeframe, Yahoo! Search registered a modest 2.4%
growth rate and MSN Search lost 15.4% market share.
* Google experienced a net gain in U.S.
visits (i.e.. received more visits than it delivered) from both MSN Search
(0.08%) and Yahoo! Search (2.06%), while both MSN Search and Yahoo! Search
experienced a net loss of U.S. visits to Google (-1.46% and -0.60%
respectively).
* MSN Search has the highest percentage
of U.S. visits from the very lucrative categories of Shopping and Classifieds,
Business and Finance, and Travel.
* Yahoo! Search and Google are stronger
in receiving U.S. visits from the categories of Education, News and Media and
Entertainment.
* Vertical search sites in the Shopping
& Classifieds and Travel categories are experiencing very strong growth with
a concurrent decrease in referral U.S. visits from search engines, indicating
potential user preference for vertical specific search.
* Both Yahoo! Search and MSN Search
capture more of the lower U.S. income demographic of $30,000 to $60,000 annual
household income. Yahoo! Search stands out in the younger U.S. age demographic
of 25-34 (25.99%), while MSN Search is stronger with U.S. females (54.26%).
For a copy of the Hitwise U.S. Online
Search Report, please contact Lizzie Babarczy on (212) 331-1283 or
lizzie.babarczy@hitwise.com
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