Comments on: Search Engine Market Share http://www.searchbanter.com/search-engine-market-share A blog about search engine optimization, seo news, tips and all other such banter. By Nelson James Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:24:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Dave Bascom http://www.searchbanter.com/search-engine-market-share#comment-4 Dave Bascom Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:28:41 +0000 http://www.searchbanter.com/seo/search-engine-market-share#comment-4 Yeah, I've noticed that each of the measurement services give different numbers for the exact percentage marketshare each search engine has, but it's clear who's #1, 2, & 3. It hasn't always been like that, though. When I got started in this business, there really were 10 or 12 unique search engines that actually mattered. Of course the total search volume was tiny compared to now...and Google wasn't one of them. There was Lycos, Northern Light, Altavista, Infoseek, HotBot, Excite, Webcrawler...all of which are now just distant memories. There have been others that showed up in the top 10 for a while like iWon, NBCi/Snap, Looksmart. Ah, the good old days. The consolidation of search traffic is a blessing and a curse--in some ways it's nice because it's much easier to just worry about 3 search engines that happen to index sites very similarly, but if you don't show up in those three, you're pretty much hosed. Before at least you had plenty of different search engines, you should show up in at least one of them for some of your keywords! Yeah, I’ve noticed that each of the measurement services give different numbers for the exact percentage marketshare each search engine has, but it’s clear who’s #1, 2, & 3. It hasn’t always been like that, though. When I got started in this business, there really were 10 or 12 unique search engines that actually mattered. Of course the total search volume was tiny compared to now…and Google wasn’t one of them. There was Lycos, Northern Light, Altavista, Infoseek, HotBot, Excite, Webcrawler…all of which are now just distant memories. There have been others that showed up in the top 10 for a while like iWon, NBCi/Snap, Looksmart. Ah, the good old days.

The consolidation of search traffic is a blessing and a curse–in some ways it’s nice because it’s much easier to just worry about 3 search engines that happen to index sites very similarly, but if you don’t show up in those three, you’re pretty much hosed. Before at least you had plenty of different search engines, you should show up in at least one of them for some of your keywords!

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