Did You Know?
According to Nielsen/Netratings, the Top Search Engines are:
- Google Search (53.6% of searches)
- Yahoo! Search (19.9% of searches)
- MSN Search (12.9% of searches)
- AOL Search (5.6% of searches)
- Ask.com Search (1.7% of searches)
- Other MISC Search (2.6% of searches)
In addition to determining the top search engines, the Nielsen/Netratings also analyzed what the most popular terms typed into the search engines were (for August 2007). The outcome was a bit surprising.
The results of the top search terms typed into the engines show that most people use search engines to find even well known websites, such as: ebay.com, google.com, and yahoo.com. So web surfers are using search engine to find popular websites, instead of using the address bar.
The top ten search terms typed into search engines in 2006 were:
- Google
- eBay
- MySpace
- Yahoo
- Mapquest
- MySpace.com
- Yahoo.com
- MSN
- Hotmail
- Pogo.com
These search terms show that most internet users prefer to use a search engine rather than simply type common website domains into a web browser address bar. The first search term on the list that is not a common domain is the word "weather", which appears at position 22.
Whatever the reasons may be for using search engines to "find" known domains, this behavior is good news for search engines: it means an increased number of page views and potential advertising revenue. It also indicates that internet users are becoming very accustomed to using search engines, and will very likely continue to use them as their preferred method of internet navigation in the future.
