What is the most reliable source for search engine market share?

[MarloSchneider]

I would like to look at data or sources to get the most accurate measure I can on search engine market share.

Does anyone have reliable sources on search engine volume/market share etc?

[SimonCullum]

Hi Spencer

Not sure in which regard you are referring to, so shall provide two answers;

1) This could be what you're looking for ~ http://www.hitwise.com/us/about-us/press-center/press-releases/google-share-of-searches-66-percent-in-sept-2011/ which is a reliable source for search engine market shares and very recent (September 2011).

Also check out ~ http://www.netmarketshare.com/ and http://marketshare.hitslink.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=5

2) Hitwise  http://www.hitwise.com/us  can provide this kind of data/information, though Hitwise is very expensive, typically in the region of $30,000 per year.

EG. the search term 'auto insurance' it would show you which websites have what market share of natural and paid search visits for this search term.

Regards

Simon

[RyanKent]

I like the first link: http://www.hitwise.com/us/about-us/press-center/press-releases/google-share-of-searches-66-percent-in-sept-2011/

The Google numbers appear lower then I expected, but I noticed an anomaly on the report. For Bing it shows "Bing powered searches" which is Bing+Yahoo. For Google it explicitly identified Google.com. I expect if you include the other properties which use the Google search engine, Google's numbers would reach 70%.

[SimonCullum]

A good observation Ryan, I tend to agree with you that Google's numbers would increase if more of it's properties were included in the calculation.