Google’s comScore Search Share Shows Mixed Picture (GOOG, YHOO, MSFT, AOL, IACI)

Earlier this month, we noted how Hitwise data showed Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) had regained some of its light losses in share of total US searches to be back above that 70% hurdle in April-2010.  It turns out that all comparisons vary from survey to survey.  comScore has data showing that Google’s total site search share came to 64.4% in April, down from 65.1%.  comScore had Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) gaining some, with slight loss in search from AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) and IAC/InteractiveCorp (NASDAQ: IAC) via Ask showing marginal declines.

All search share analysis is different from survey to survey. comScore noted that Americans conducted 15.5 billion searches in April, up slightly from March. Google Sites accounted for 10 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites (2.8 billion), Microsoft Sites (1.8 billion), Ask Network (574 million) and AOL LLC (371 million).

There are some interesting takeaways here though, and it may explain a lot of the change.  Google’s raw sites were unchanged, but the drop of 7% from YouTube and “all other” seems to be the big culprit.  Yahoo! gains were in core sites, but a drop in its “other sites.”  Bing actually showed a 2% change for the worse month over month.

SITE.. March April  Change
Google 65.1% 64.4% -0.7
Yahoo! 16.9% 17.7%  0.8
MSFT.. 11.7% 11.8%  0.1
AskNet 3.8%  3.7%  -0.1
AOLNet 2.5%  2.4%  -0.1

comScore noted Both Yahoo! Sites and Microsoft Sites have experienced gains due in part to the introduction of new site navigation experiences that tie content and related search results together within several channels.  These features provide search results to users as they navigate through topical content and meet comScore’s established criteria for counting search queries.

Stay tuned, the war for search share is not going away…

JON C. OGG