The market share change between Google and Yahoo has been breathtaking this past year! The article Google gains search share, widens lead on Yahoo (over at Yahoo news) indicates Google’s market share was 36.3% a year ago and now it’s up to 42.3% while Yahoo was 31.1% and is now down to 27.6%.
What I’ve been seeing at GreatSchools is a lot more dramatic! For example our traffic from Google now accounts for 69% of search traffic (up from 49% a year ago) and Yahoo now accounts for 23% (down from 40% a year ago). That’s not just a slight market change, it’s a drastic market shift!
Jeremy wrote an interesting article on referrer traffic last October and how in his case it varies so dramatically from the publicly stated market share numbers. To be honest, I’ve never come across a site that gets as much traffic from Yahoo, AOL, or MSN as the published market share numbers indicate one should and many of the websites I’ve worked on are not technology focused at all. I suspect in reality Google has more market share than the publicly available numbers really indicate!
Good write-up.
Google is going from strength to strength but the upward curve will eventually have to level off. It is inevitable. And I think Yahoo has the poential to regain its dominant position again. But time will tell me my friend. This competition is only healthy. Now Yahoo mail increased its mail box space after Google entered the fray. You see.