Nielsen Online today released its rankings of U.S. search share for January. Overall search increased 27.5 percent year over year to 9.5 billion searches. Google had year over year increase of 40.8 percent and received 62.8 percent of searches. Yahoo had a year over year increase of 8.7 percent and received 16.2 percent of searches. Microsoft had a year over year increase of 18.3 percent and received 11.2 percent of searches.
Category: Microsoft
Study Finds Over Half of Users Use Multiple Search Engines
A new study by Forrester Research found that 55 percent of U.S. online adults use multiple search engines each week. 20 percent of users only used Google each week, 8 percent only used Yahoo, 3 percent only used AOL, 2 percent only used their ISP’s search engine, 1 percent only used MSN, and 1 percent only used Ask.com. The study also found that 69 percent of users used Google each week, 50 percent used Yahoo, and 14 percent used MSN. Finally, the study found 30 percent of users identified Yahoo as their home page, 23 percent identified Google, and 7 percent identified MSN. The study was based on a survey of over 4,800 individuals.
December U.S. Search Share Results
Nielsen Online yesterday released its rankings of U.S. search share for December. Overall search increased 19.6 percent year over year to 8.6 billion searches. Google had year over year increase of 33.5 percent and received 62.9 percent of searches. Yahoo had a year over year increase of 13.7 percent and received 16.8 percent of searches. Microsoft had a year over year decrease of 15.5 percent and received 9.8 percent of searches.
Microsoft Signs Search Deal With Dell
Microsoft has signed a three-year deal with Dell to become the default search provider on a majority of the consumer and small business PCs it makes according to a post on Live Search blog. The deal, which involves PCs in 23 countries, will begin in February and also includes the installation of the Live Search powered toolbar. Dell previously had a similar deal with Google and Microsoft struck a similar deal with HP in June of last year, which went into effect this month.
Microsoft Signs Deal to Become Search Provider for Verizon Wireless
Microsoft has reached an agreement with Verizon Wireless to become the default search provider. The initially announcement was made at a Verizon Wireless investor conference, with additional details to be announced later in the day at Microsoft CEO’s keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show according to a Bloomberg report. Microsoft and Verizon Wireless had been in discussion over an agreement for some time and Verizon Wireless had also held talks with Google over a possible deal. Verizon Wireless is the last major U.S. carrier to reach an agreement for a default search carrier, both AT&T and T-Mobile have agreements with Yahoo and Sprint has an agreement with Google.
November U.S. Search Share Results
Nielsen Online today released its rankings of U.S. search share for November. Overall search increased 9.6 percent year over year to 8.1 billion searches. Google had year over year growth of 21.7 percent and received 64.1 percent of searches. Google’s percentage of searches was it’s highest reported by Nielsen Online, surpassing it previous high in April of this year when it received 62.0 percent. Yahoo had a year over year decrease of 1.4 percent and received 16.1 percent of searches. Microsoft had a year over year decrease of 16.7 percent and received 9.1 percent of searches.
Microsoft To Begin Testing Updated Search Crawler
Microsoft has announced that they will be testing an updated MSNBot, the crawler for MSN/Live Search, in the coming weeks. The crawler will use the user agent string msnbot/2.0b (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm) and will be crawling a slow speed during testing according to a post on the Live Search Webmaster Center Blog. No details were given as to what updates the crawler has received. MSNBot’s last update was in February when it began supporting HTTP compression and conditional gets.
Live Search Adds Malware Warnings To Search Results
Microsoft has added malware warnings to the search results of Live Search according to a post on the Live Search Blog. When a link to a site that their crawler has detected as having malware is clicked a warning message is displayed. Yahoo released a similar service in May and Google has had similar services since August of 2006. Malware warning information was added to Live Search Webmaster Center last week.
Live Search Webmaster Center Adds Malware Detection
The Live Search Webmaster Center has been updated with malware detection and simplified authentication. The malware detection will report any pages that Live Search’s crawler has found to be infected with malware. When a malware infection has been removed, a re-inclusion request can be made which “should take days, not weeks, to resolve” according to a post on the Live Search Webmaster Center Blog. The Webmaster Center also reports if any of the pages that are linked from the website have been infected with malware. The simplified authentication process allows the use of one authentication code for multiple sites and removes the need to specify if the whether the XML or HTML authentication method is used.
October U.S. Search Share Results
Nielsen Online today released its rankings of U.S. search share for October. Overall search decreased 2.0 percent year over year to 7.8 billion searches. Google had year over year growth of 8.1 percent and received 61.2 percent of searches. Google’s percentage of searches was it’s second highest reported by Nielsen Online, only surpassed by April of this year when it received 62.0 percent. Yahoo had a year over year decrease of 12.0 percent and received 16.9 percent of searches. Microsoft had a year over year decrease of 19.0 percent and received 11.4 percent of searches.