Google Commands 60% of Global Searches

Google netted 37.1 billion of 61 billion total searches for August, dwarfing totals from Yahoo, Baidu.com and Microsoft.

 

Google captured roughly 60 percent of the searches conducted worldwide in August, blowing away the field with 37.1 billion of 61 billion queries, according to new statistics from comScore. Five billion of Google's August searches came from the Mountain View, Calif., company's video property YouTube.com.

Yahoo sites ranked second with 8.5 billion worldwide searches, while Chinese language search portal Baidu.com nabbed third place with more than 3.2 billion searches. Microsoft sites grabbed fourth place worldwide with a 2.1 billion searches for August.

The results were another day at the office for Google, which has stock experts and pundits giddy over its $633.38 trading price Oct. 11.

Some market experts think the rampant speculation over a potential Google phone is responsible for the rise in Google's stock. Lehman Brothers predicted Google's share price might climb as high as $714 when the mobile mystery device manifests itself.

Others believe the soaring stock was buoyed by the addition of YouTube videos to Google's AdSense network, broadening Google's online ad scope.

Through all of the hype, financial analysts expect Google to report earnings-per-share growth of $3.75 and a 57 percent sales increase when the company unveils third quarter earnings on Oct. 18.

Being the reigning global search engine leader can't hurt the stock price.

More broadly, comScore said the 61 billion August searches were conducted by more than 750 million people age 15 and older at home or work. The report did not take into account searches done from public computers, such as Internet cafes or libraries, or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

The bulk of the searches were queried in the Asia-Pacific region, where 258 million unique searchers conducted 20.3 billion searches. Europe followed with 210 million searches executing 18 billion searches, and North America was No. 3 with 206 million searchers and 16 billion searches.

The metrics reflect the first fruits of comScore's new qSearch 2.0 service, which is designed to provide more granular details about online searches at the top 50 worldwide Internet properties, where search activity is observed.

With qSearch 2.0, comScore, of Reston, Va., has made room for companies that provide Internet searches, but aren't search engines per se. This is done by determining whether a search originates from a text box on a search engine portal, an auto-search typed in the browser's URL line, or a search from a text box on a downloaded search toolbar, local search or a partner site.

Accordingly, comScore now tracks search totals on eBay, Amazon, Wikipedia and Craig's List.