ComScore: Google’s Search Share Falling
July 22, 2008
ComScore, hard on the heels of Google’s pretty good financial results, reports “US Search Rankings Issued for June, Google Share Down from May”. You can read the news story in Marketing VOX here. If you want to know how bad it is for Google, here’s what ComScore’s analysis revealed:
Google Sites retained its [sic] lead in the US core search market capturing 61.5 percent of the search conducted in June, down slightly from 61.8 percent in May (though in expanded search it gained)…
The “sky is falling headline” baffles me, but it works like a click magnet. The ComScore data are at odds with Hitwise’s recent report.
Neither ComScore of Hitwise count clicks. Both outfits rely on data provided by partners. Google, according to my sources, has the ability to count every click. When one of these outside firms calculates market share, the numbers are general indications, not absolutes.
If you are either Microsoft or Yahoo, Google’s share–whether 60 percent and falling or 70 percent and stable–are meaningless. Both of these companies have to reverse years of inattention to search. Whether Microsoft and Yahoo have to narrow the gap by 50 or 60 percent before Google gains more share is likely to be a thrilling task.
Fiddling in the board room and buying technology that may not scale or cannot be installed without a regiment of engineers is not the way to close the gap. How about a leap frog play? Why not buy Yandex? There are some bold actions to take, but third party firms want to get traffic, sell statistical analyses, and find those lucrative consulting jobs. I applaud their efforts.
Too bad the data are all to often off the mark. Googzilla is, according to my sources, accounting for a significant share of the Web search traffic and a bigger chunk of online advertising. The company faces big challenges, but when I looked out my window the sky was where it was supposed to be and Google was delivering search results with alacrity.
Stephen Arnold, July 22, 2008
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