June was Google’s best month of 2011, as the search giant accounted for over 92% of all searches conducted by UK Internet users during the month, according to new research.
The data, from Hitwise, found top competitors Bing and Yahoo! both lost market share during June, leaving Google in its most dominant position this year.
Google Sites saw a 1.50% increase in market share of searches in the UK in June, whilst Microsoft Sites lost 1.38% during the month. Yahoo! Sites meanwhile also lost market share, although their decline was a more modest 0.11%.
Year-on-year, Google had also made gains, whilst Microsoft dipped from 3.12% of all UK Internet searches in June 2010 to 2.88% in June 2011.
Ask Sites had a second consecutive month of growth in June, whilst other search engines lost market share of searches between May and June.
“Google has certainly been dominant in search for the last ten years but even by Google’s high standards, to capture 92% of the UK search market is quite an achievement,” commented Robin Goad, Research Director of Experian Hitwise. “In other markets like the US the search distribution is much more even, but in the UK Google has woven itself into the core fabric of Internet usage so much that other players are struggling to keep up. The temptation for marketers when they see stats like this is to optimise purely for Google at the expense of all other search engines.
“However, there remain some excellent opportunities that exist by using Bing, Yahoo! and others, as these search engines can attract niche audiences that could be perfect to attract a brand’s core demographics. The interesting challenge for the future is how other search engines will react to compete with Google’s ever expanding list of propositions, including the new Google+ social platform.”
Source: www.hitwise.com/uk
