Measurement Firms Differ Over Bing's Progress

Nielsen and comScore disagree over Bing's recent growth in market share.

Since Microsoft relaunched its Bing engine last year, audience measurement firms Nielsen and comScore have reported increases in consumer use of the product. However, the companies’ estimates for Bing’s overall search market share in August differed substantially, throwing into question how much progress the engine has actually made.

According to Nielsen, Bing’s market share grew by two percentage points during August, reaching an overall share of 13.9 percent, while Yahoo’s properties accounted for 13.1 percent of U.S. searches, Nielsen said. Meanwhile, comScore’s market share data for August tells a different story, attributing Bing with just 11.1 percent of searches, and Yahoo with a 17.4 percent share.

Interestingly, however, the firms agreed one way or another that Microsoft and Yahoo’s combined “search alliance” market share stood at around 28 percent. As part of that arrangement Bing will soon power all search results and advertising on Yahoo’s search properties, but the two search entities will still compete for audience, with Yahoo’s reimbursement based on the number of searches it attracts.

Explicit Core Share* of U.S. Searches Among Leading Providers, August 2010 vs July 2010
  Share of Searches (%)
Domain July 2010 August 2010

Month-over-Month Point
Change (%)

Google Sites 65.8 65.4 -0.4
Yahoo Sites 17.1 17.4 0.3
Microsoft Sites 11.0 11.1 0.1
Ask Network 3.8 3.8 0.0
AOL Network 2.3 2.3 0.0

Note: Data is based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

*Excludes contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with search results.

Source: comScore 2010

 

Top U.S. Search Sites, August 2010
Brand Share of Searches (%) Month-over-Month
Change (%)

Year-over-Year
Change (%)

Google Search 65.1 1 1
MSN/Windows Live/Bing Search 13.9 2 30
Yahoo Search 13.1 -8 -18
Ask.com Search 2.1 0 24
AOL Search 2.0 0 -37
Source: The Nielsen Company

 

Subscribe to get your daily business insights

Whitepapers

US Mobile Streaming Behavior
Whitepaper | Mobile

US Mobile Streaming Behavior

5y

US Mobile Streaming Behavior

Streaming has become a staple of US media-viewing habits. Streaming video, however, still comes with a variety of pesky frustrations that viewers are ...

View resource
Winning the Data Game: Digital Analytics Tactics for Media Groups
Whitepaper | Analyzing Customer Data

Winning the Data Game: Digital Analytics Tactics for Media Groups

5y

Winning the Data Game: Digital Analytics Tactics f...

Data is the lifeblood of so many companies today. You need more of it, all of which at higher quality, and all the meanwhile being compliant with data...

View resource
Learning to win the talent war: how digital marketing can develop its people
Whitepaper | Digital Marketing

Learning to win the talent war: how digital marketing can develop its peopl...

2y

Learning to win the talent war: how digital market...

This report documents the findings of a Fireside chat held by ClickZ in the first quarter of 2022. It provides expert insight on how companies can ret...

View resource
Engagement To Empowerment - Winning in Today's Experience Economy
Report | Digital Transformation

Engagement To Empowerment - Winning in Today's Experience Economy

1m

Engagement To Empowerment - Winning in Today's Exp...

Customers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touchpoints – globally! Make sure your brand shines in those critical moments. Read More...

View resource