Google Lost Search Market Share in April 2013 but No One Really Cares, Thanks to I/O
According to the latest figures from comScore qSearch, Google Sites claimed 66.5 percent of the U.S. search market in April, down 0.6 percentage points from its 67.1 percent share in March. Microsoft Sites followed with 17.3 percent of the market, up 0.4 percentage points. Meanwhile, Yahoo Sites finished April with 12.0 percent of the search market, up 0.2 percentage points from March.
In its “Powered By” reporting, comScore notes that 68.5 percent of searches in April carried organic results from Google, while 26.9 percent carried organic results from Bing. This split was 69.2 percent/26.1 percent in March.
This negative drop of news didn’t even create a ripple in the pond on Wednesday, as Google’s I/O conference wowed the general public. Among the many announcements and landmarks discussed at the event, the search giant unveiled a revamped search engine that would anticipate the next question the searcher has. For instance, when searching for “the population of India,” a user will see not only the population of India (1.24 billion, in case you were wondering) but also the populations of China and the U.S., along with various statistics about the country (e.g., GDP, population growth rate, life expectancy). Google Maps is also getting the anticipatory treatment.
This isn’t much of a surprise, given the previews we’ve seen of this anticipatory flavor of information seen in Google Now.
Google is also pushing voice search more into the spotlight, emphasizing the conversational nature that searches can take on.
The underlying current of all this is clearly aimed at taking the friction out of the search for information online, something consumers will certainly enjoy when it’s done well. Marketers, on the other hand, will have to ponder the implications of a world where “searching” for information might preclude the need to even click or type, and might change the path to and meaning of findability and relevance.
Shares of GOOG ended the day up 3.25 percent, finishing at $915.89 per share.
