US Search Market Reaches Mature Stability

The latest comScore report that shows what the search preferences of Americans were in July indicates a rather stagnant situation at the top of the chart. Google sites are still on the first place, with 61.9% of the total market, which represents a 0.4% growth in comparison with the previous month. Yahoo! and Microsoft sites, the eternal second, respectively third runner ups, register insignificant losses, of 0.4 and 0.3 percents, but, on a long term, these mincing steps towards a decline can have serious repercussions. The Ask network and AOL keep their last month's positions, but increase their public by 0.2% and, respectively, 0.1%.

While Google's evolution in the last few months is not spectacular at all, the search engine manages to engage its already faithful audience even more. As the American Customer Satisfaction Index shows, the satisfaction score in the case of Google reaches, in 2008, an unprecedented 86. This means that, although it doesn't perform eye-catchy changes (like the one made by Yahoo! last year, when the Sunnyvale company adjusted its pages to a more modern look), Google is still seen as more attractive and reliable.

For that matter, performance is more important than appearance. Practically, the only change Google has recently made to its website regarded a privacy link, whose display was necessary after a torrent of criticism related to this matter had troubled the peace within the company.

In July, Americans conducted 3% more searches compared to June. Taking into account only the core searches, and not including those for which were responsible niche properties of the major search engines, the growth was even smaller - 2%. The market share of the most important search engines doesn't register significant swings anymore because the market is already mature. Most of the Americans who care to have Internet access set their preferences as of the early days of search.