August 25, 2006

According to Nielsen//NetRatings, Yahoo had a slight gain in its market share when compared to a holding pattern for Google.

On Aug. 21, Nielsen reported that Google accounted for 49.2 percent of all search activity in July, nearly flat from June’s 49.2 percent.

The research firm also reported that Yahoo Search garnered 23.8 percent of last month’s search activity, up from June’s 23 percent. MSN accounted for 9.6 percent of last month's searches, down from 10.3 percent in June.

As Danny Sullivan points out "One has to look at longer term trends and consensus figures from multiple providers. We’ll see what Hitwise has to say about this now".

What Hitwise data shows is something similar: a flattening for Google and fractional growth for Yahoo, although Hitwise reports a near 60 percent market share for Google.

There is speculation that Google's almost 60 percent market share could reflect some saturation and that the dip in the numbers above may be a seasonal fluctuation.

It will be important to look at next month's results to better establish if in fact a new trend is developing at this point.

Source: Search Engine Journal