Google’s Search Market Share?

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Lots of people speculate that Google has about 60% search market share. It seems to me that this is totally wrong — seems to me they have well above 90%. I pulled up Google Analytics for all eight of the sites that I have it installed on and did a quick query to see what percentage of people hit my sites from Google vs. other search engines. Take a look:

blog.bestseattlebars.com 97.5%
helpd.org 100%
alexloddengaard.com 99.0%
bestseattlebars.com 73.8%
cellarspot.com 100%
dirtyinq.com 100%
huskysnowboardteam.com 50%
timedex.org 100%

Small sample size/poor statistical analysis? Yes. 60% search market share? No way.

What do you think?

  • http://goodmorningeconomics.wordpress.com jsalvati

    Post your sample sizes and we’ll do the numbers.

  • http://www.alexloddengaard.com Alex Loddengaard

    I specifically didn’t post the sample sizes because some of those sites technically aren’t mine. I can tell you that some of those sites get around 1000 uniques a month and others get about 50 uniques a month.

  • http://dontexplain.com Clint

    Windows Live search gets a huge boost out of being the default setting in IE7, which is an intentional confusion further pushed by just how similar the color scheme and layout is to Google’s.

  • Sean

    I bet Google Analytics on those sites also tells you that Firefox has great market share. ;)

  • http://sunilgarg.com/ Sunil Garg

    Roughly, your sample is biased towards American interests, a young audience (which likely has Firefox installed and uses Gmail), and has a limited audience (if 1000 uniques is the most trafficked site in the list).

    Between people who use IE, never bother to change their homepage from MSN (this is a huge number if you talk to people at Microsoft); people who use Yahoo because they use Yahoo Mail, etc.; and the completely different numbers in terms of international search market share, I think 60% is quite believable.

  • http://www.alexloddengaard.com Alex Loddengaard

    Sean, most of my sites do have a majority of Firefox users, which proves Sunil’s point. However, I have seen some friends’ analytics that show IE being as commonly used as Firefox.

    Sunil, agreed that this is a poor statistical analysis. I think many of the points you and Clint have raised are valid, but I still think 60% is a big undershot. I know plenty of people that use Internet Explorer and use Google. Perhaps my 90% claim is high, but I have a strong, gut-level instinct that 60% is way too low. Regardless, thank for the input!

  • http://goodmorningeconomics.wordpress.com jsalvati

    What’s interesting is that even if Google has “only” a 60% market share, there still isn’t a whole lot of competition between search engines; people who us Google stick with Google, and people who use Yahoo stick with Yahoo. It seems to me that very few people actively search for better search engines.

  • http://www.alexloddengaard.com Alex Loddengaard

    Good point, jsalvati. The search industry is much different than say the cell phone industry in that regard. Still, I don’t believe 60%. Thanks for the comment!

  • CW

    Dude,

    You need to consider that your demographic is entirely google bias. You are a software engineer.

  • http://www.alexloddengaard.com Alex Loddengaard

    Yeah I know I know. Sunil and Clint shined light on this bias as well. I’m still sticking with my gut-level intuition of 60% being too little, but I’ll definitely disagree with my previous claim of over 90%.

    Thanks for the comment, CW.