Search silver medal for Yahoo! and MSN

A note from Heather Hopkins at Hitwise:

In preparation for publishing our UK Search Research Note this week [you can request a copy here] and with SES London in full swing last week, I wanted to share some stats on the UK search market.

Google powered three-quarters of all UK searches in the four weeks ending 20 May 2006 - combining the .com and UK properties.

While it is always astonishing to see Google's strength in the UK – there's nothing really new here.

What's new is that MSN Search and Yahoo! Search are now tied for second in the share of executed UK searches. MSN Search and Yahoo! Search (again combining the UK and .com properties) each powered just over 7% of UK searches.

1 - Google UK is the most visited website in the UK, receiving more than twice the share of visits compared with MSN Hotmail, the #2 ranked site.

2 - Google UK, MSN.co.uk Search, Yahoo! UK & Ireland Search and Ask.co.uk together powered 82% of all UK internet searches in the four weeks ending 20th May 2006. Combining the UK and .com properties for these search engines that number climbs to 96%.

3 - In the US, Yahoo! Search is a stronger competitor. Amongst US internet users, Google.com powered 59% of all searches, compared to Yahoo! Search at 22% in the four-week period ending 20th May 2006. MSN Search powered 12% and Ask.com, 4% in that same four week period.

4 - Hitwise data indicates that visitors to Google are performing multiple searches and using the search engine as a point from which to navigate the web.

First, comparing share of visits with share of executed searches, it is evident that Google powers a much larger share of searches relative to the share of visits the site receives.

Second, visitors to Google UK spent an average of 13 minutes and 30 seconds on the site in the week ending 20th May 2006; this is 2 minutes and 46 seconds longer than visitors spent on Yahoo! UK and Ireland Search, the search engine among the leading 4 with the second longest session duration.

Third, as with all search engines, the highest volume search terms on Google UK are navigational. In the four weeks ending 20th May 2006, the highest volume searches on Google UK were "ebay", "hotmail", "bebo", "yahoo" and "argos".

Heather Hopkins, director of research, Hitwise UK

Read more from Heather’s Blog here