14 DAY TRIAL // An Internet search engine is nothing more than a means to an end. And in this context, it is interesting to see which of the three dominant worldwide search providers is capable of delivering top services with its product. On the search engine market, it all comes down to Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft with Live Search and MSN. In terms of dominance over the total volume of searches, there is little doubt that Google owns the lion's share, and that Yahoo and Microsoft are only trailing the Mountain View-based company at a distance. But is it the same when it comes down to search satisfaction? Well, according to Compete, not quite.
"Yahoo pretty much takes the cake on this one with about 75% of searches performed on Yahoo in August resulted in a referral. By comparison, searches on Google result in a referral about 65% of the time and searches on MSN/Live result in a referral about 59% of the time. Lower search fulfillment numbers mean that on a percentage basis fewer search queries on that engine resulted in the searcher clicking on a result link. So from this perspective one might consider Yahoo more effective at getting consumers the results they want," stated Compete's Jeremy Crane.
This means that while Google may very well be on top of the worldwide search market, it is second best to Yahoo, returning less relevant results to users. Microsoft of course is yet again the indisputable underdog. But delivering less user satisfaction means that the Redmond company will have a tough time at gaining the loyalty of its audience. Earlier this week, Microsoft introduced Live Search 2.0, evolving the search engine, but only time will tell if it will narrow the gap that separates it from Yahoo and Google.
"There are roughly 7.5 billion search queries performed every month by the US Online Population. However there are only about 5 billion search referrals every month. This means that roughly 1/3 of all searches in some sense go unanswered. People search for something and then don't click on a search result. So the obvious question is which search engine is doing the best job from a "search fulfillment" standpoint? As a reminder here is where we stood from a market share perspective in August," Crane added.