Tech News

Search engine rankings March 2007 - Google still in the lead

By Steve Ragan Apr 12, 2007, 10:05 GMT

Hitwise, a research firm who tracks online searching released their March 2007, results showing who the top ranked search engine was for the month. With the first quarter of 2007 now closed, it should surprise no one that Google took the lead with little more than sixty-four percent of the month’s searches. This count is up from sixty-three percent in February. Yahoo and MSN Live Search took second and third place with twenty-one percent and nine percent, respectfully.

“Google's growth shows no signs of slowing,” said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise. “Despite capturing the majority of searches in the U.S., and in light of competitor’s improvements, Google’s market share of executed searches continues to grow, exceeding ten percent growth year-over-year.”

Both MSN Live and Yahoo launched several improvements to their search offerings. As did Google, but it is results that count and in a recent Monsters and Critics report it was demonstrated that Google, when it comes to targeted advertising, and relevant search returns beats the other two hands down.

Google recently launched a directory search geared at local businesses. The new services from Google Labs, uses a phone, and a toll-free number (1-800-GOOG-411) to allow voice prompted searching. MSN Live and Yahoo each inked deals recently with several providers to improve targeted advertising. Both are also working to merge several methods of searching into one neat package for their users. Yahoo with its mobile searching and integrated tools, and Microsoft with their OEM deal with Lenovo to include Live Search in all new laptop computers sold.

There was another interesting trend reported with the search results released by Hitwise. People online are turning to search engines for more targeted information. Comparing March 2007 to March 2006, Travel, News and Media, and Business and Finance categories received more than double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.

For example, Health and Medical searching resulted in forty-three percent of all searches followed by Travel (thirty percent), and shopping (twenty-five percent) to round out the top three categories. News and Media with twenty-one percent came in fourth place. With the internet becoming the main tool and source for information, the two leaders, Google and Yahoo will likely attempt capitalize on that trend. They will do this by developing their respective brands to reach more people faster.

As proven with the category results, the fact both search engines are aiming at targeted and local results seems to demonstrate that they are vastly aware of how the users want to use their products.