Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all posted robust query growth in worldwide search for August 2009, as search queries grew 41.6 percent year over year, according to the new numbers from comScore.
Google’s worldwide market search share declined a tad to 67.3 percent from 67.5 percent in July 2009. However, Google’s query growth soared 62.5 percent from August 2008 after growing 57.6 from July 2008 to July 2009.
Microsoft, whose Bing search engine has shown steady growth in the U.S. since it launched in June, was up 59 percent year-over-year from 41 percent. Bing now commands an even 3 percent of the worldwide search marke, comScore claimed.
Yahoo, which revamped its search engine and is in the midst of a massive advertising campaign, saw queries grow 8.5 percent year-over-year in August. Yahoo commands 7.9 percent of the worldwide search market.
Worldwide Internet search queries grew 3.2 percent month over month and 41.6 percent year over year in August 2009, up from the 41.1 percent year-over-year growth in July, according to comScore. Worldwide, unique visitors increased 3.3 percent month over month and 27.6 percent year over year, up from 24.9 percent year-over-year growth in July.
With 868 million unique users, Google Sites was the most visited property, followed by Microsoft Sites with 708 million, Yahoo Sites with 596 million, and Facebook.com with 390 million unique visitors. Facebook, which recently passed the 300 million member mark, boasted 129 billion page views, second to Google’s 251 billion hits. Yahoo and Microsoft followed with 99 billion and 98 billion, respectively.
FBR Capital Markets took these statistics as a sign that search advertising is on the upswing, noting that search advertising will be the most resilient ad form.
“While the medium’s flexibility made online advertising, and search, in particular, the first of the advertising segments to be cut, we believe this will also lead to a more accelerated reallocation of dollars online in recovery,” FBR anaysts said in a research note. “We believe this growth acceleration in the second half and into next year will be the primary driver of Internet stock outperformance.”
The research firm also noted that companies well positioned for the mobile Internet will gain market share, thanks to the proliferation of smart phones, which enable users to easily search the Web while on the go.
FBR specifically mentioned Google as being well-positioned here. Mobile was one of the core areas Google highlighted in a recent search monetization Webcast, where Google showed how it is leveraging mobile, site links, videos, product, local and map information as vehicles for new ad opportunities.
There is particularly great promise in tying mobile ads to location-based apps.