Yahoo Search Traffic falls 50%
May search stats revealed a shocking shift in the UK search habits. Yahoo, the long struggling giant of Paid Search Marketing and Pay Per Click, lost over 50% of their search share on the previous month.
Yahoo, often regarded as the second place search engine, is now tied with Microsoft for UK search traffic. Their share of UK search traffic has tumbled from 9% to just 4%. This will be a hollow victory for Microsoft, who have been tempted and knocked back form a Yahoo takeover bid. Microsoft’s own traffic share has dropped slightly over the year from 5% to 4%.
The Microsoft plan for online domination has stalled, or rather not even taken off! Microsoft’s share of the search traffic has never been above 10% and they don’t ever look like threatening Google’s potential monopoly.
Google has continued from strength to strength increasing UK search share to roughly 87%. The pay per click (PPC) & paid search market share has increased even further as Ask also see market gains. With Ask also serving pay per click ads from Google Adwords customers, Google now serves pay per click (PPC) ads to approximately 93% Of all UK search results!
In the US the picture is still skewed towards Google. They provide the results of 68% of searches and their paid search ads are also expanding as Ask and seen growth in their limited search share.
Yahoo’s image in the US is a little rosier, with a search share of 20% and Microsoft still lagging way behind. Without a huge market shift, major publicity scandal or massive network failure at Google, there looks like no way back for Yahoo and even Microsoft’s search networks. Perhaps the Google/yahoo deal last month could pave the way to Yahoo and Microsoft becoming search partners, serving Google ads with their search results!
