Google has increased its dominant position in the UK search market, accounting for more than 9 in 10 of all searches, according to the latest data.
The research, from ComScore, indicates that UK Internet users made 2.2 billion visits to search engines in April 2012, up by 89 million visits compared to April 2011.
The increase in search activity represents a 4.1 per cent year-on-year increase.
Google further increased its dominance within the UK search market in April as rival search engines bing and Yahoo! both lost market share.
In total, Google Sites accounted for 91.02 per cent of all searches conducted in the UK in April 2012, up by nearly one quarter of a per cent from March 2012.
Year-on-year Google also saw positive growth with a 0.18 per cent increase in market share of searches compared to April 2011.
Microsoft Sites led by bing lost market share of searches this month, down by 0.12 per cent with an overall market share of 3.86 per cent. Yahoo! Sites also decreased in market share by 0.16 per cent. Ask Sites meanwhile showed growth in both the monthly and yearly figures, edging close to two per cent of the total UK search market. Other search engines monitored by Experian Hitwise maintained their market share this month but were down by 0.20 per cent year-on-year.
James Murray, Digital Insight Manager for Experian Marketing Services commented: “We’ve witnessed increased online search activity in the UK across every month so far in 2012 and this trend looks likely to continue throughout the rest of the year. Search is becoming even more powerful in digital marketing, and marketers need to know what people are searching for online in order to satisfy the needs and demands of their customers. With over 40 per cent of online traffic going to retail websites coming from search engines this is a channel that you need to really understand in order to maximise onsite traffic levels.”
