2006 Search Engine Projections?

[greeneagle]

GOOGLE with 46% of SE Market now?

Somehow, I missed it, and I suspect a lot of others did too.
Nielson NetRankings reported the following Web Search Statistics for the foremost Search Engines a few months ago:

GOOGLE: 46.2%
YAHOO: 22.5%
MSN: 12.6%
AOL: 5.4%
My Way: 2.2%
Ask: 1.6%
Netscape: 1.6%
iWon: .9%
Dogpile: .9%
Earthlink: .8%
Others: 5.3%

Danny Sullivan reported on it over at Search Engine Watch.

How accurate do you think these stats are?
What implications do these stats have for future SEO?
Are YAHOO and MSN almost as powerful as GOOGLE together?

It's about time to start making our yearly Search Engine projections for the new year. Hey, even 10% market shares are game for purchase. Are any of them going to pull "rabbits" out of the hat like the GOOG recently? Is GOOGLE going to stop pulling "rabbits" out...oops "Analytics" was a "premie".

How about it let's hear your projections, wild as they may be!

Ken

[SEOforGoogle]

Local search will gain more importance in the seo field.

It will be a fragmented market with lots of opportunities, albeit smaller, but it's an area that will grow tremendously.

[flood6]

I don't think I had ever heard of My Way, but I was surprised to see it had a larger share than Ask.

It turns out My Way is powered by Ask. Danny mentiones this in his report that Ken linked in the OP.

I'm thinking that the players are pretty well "locked-in" meaning that there won't be any new search engines to come along and challenge Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask. They might take share away from each other, then give it back.

Though I'm sure everyone thought AltaVista was the cat's pajamas and always would be, too. I just think Google has built up enough loyalty (while shaking up Yahoo and MSN) that they won't be taken off guard again. Any startup in the search arena will be snached up by one of the big boys before they can make a real play.

[TrafficProducer]

Count and Count again!

Search once don't find what you want. 1 click

Search again don't find what you want. 2 click

and so on, increasing counts...

But then find a site and search that site.,no counts addded to main engine.

[Smoky]

How accurate do you think these stats are?
What implications do these stats have for future SEO?
Are YAHOO and MSN almost as powerful as GOOGLE together?

Ken[/quote]

Great questions.
Well, from my humble perspective, looking at the stats for my site, the top three certainly come close, Ask is featured and so are some others, but the top 3 are in about the same proportions

Personally I don't think this will change much in the next 12 months and with Google continuing to frequently change its algo, I think most of us will continue to focus on Google, may be at the neglect of the others.

Your last question is very interesting and Yes, I do think that together they actually 'out-do' Google.
The interesting thing I've noticed, is that the traffic I get from Yahoo and MSN looks at considerably more of my pages that the visitors from Google... What does that suggest about the demographics of Google vs Yahoo, are shoppers using Yahoo and MSN more so than Google? My stats certainly would suggest that.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth

Smoky

[slideri812]

MSN at 12%!? Are you kidding me? I recently read a piece (can't recall where now) that stated MSN was pulling in all of 3%. Given their small margin a 9% difference is huge.

As for the geo targeted searches we have been performing geo specific SEO for about three years now. In fact that is one of the corneer stones of our business. I say this because most of our clients are local and their target market is local. This is an area that was being neglegted by most developers in area area. Heck, as small as we are are have been the only firn to publicly state that we provided geo targeted SEO.

So, with all that said, now that the average joe blowe knows he/her can search for and find good results based on their geo location I see the importace of this type of SEO shooting through the roof next year.

[DrTandem1]

My stats show Google about 40%, now. That means a whopping 60% are searching with other engines. Those numbers are reversed of only about a year ago. That translates into a 20% loss in market share for being the search engine of choice.

If that trend continues, Google will be another dot com casualty. Interesting how chasing the dollar rather focusing on your core business causes you to actually lose business.

The two engines that have shown the most gain are MSN and Yahoo. Yahoo in particular should be watched as their partner, SBC, became AT&T a week ago. Look for big gains for Yahoo in the first quarter of 2006. Google should have thought twice before letting their former partner, Yahoo, get away.

It is also important to note that Google's financial survival depends on search, while Yahoo and MSN make up the majority of their revenue in other areas.

[TrafficProducer]

Google will be another dot com casualty.

It's all about cash now, not so much returning the best results.

Like Microsoft Google may be too big and disliked because thy don't give others a real chance.

[jmoran77]

I personally think google will take a larger decline than posted as the Search Engine of Choice. When it comes to making money and bringing the website owner revenue I believe Yahoo and MSN will come out with vast improvements and eventually bully their way to the top. I think that the one to watch the most is Yahoo as MSN and Google are well hated/loved. The consistent "algo" updates from google can work against them in the future , but right now seems to be what keeps google far ahead right now. Can google conquer the local search, we shall see, but I doubt it. [/code]

[espectations]

I agree with slideri812 - my customers also target local markets so we market their products and services to that specific market. Google.co.za vs Google.com do render different results now. In the beginning it did not.

One thing I am not to sure about is whether the locals search Google.co.za vs Google.com - might be that some customer education will be required.

I see similar trends with my sites regarding decrease of Google and increase of MSN and Yahoo.

It is going to be an interesting year ahead.