COMSCORE, INC. 
By RESTON, Va., Jan. 11, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace. Google Sites led the explicit core search market in December with 65.9 percent of search queries conducted.
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U.S. Explicit Core Search
Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in December with 65.9 percent market share (up 0.5 percentage points), followed by Microsoft Sites with 15.1 percent (up 0.1 percentage points) and Yahoo! Sites with 14.5 percent. Ask Network accounted for 2.9 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.6 percent.
comScore Explicit Core Search Share Report*
December 2011 vs. November 2011
Total U.S. - Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
------------------------
Core Search Entity Explicit Core Search Share
(%)
------------------ --------------------------
Nov-11 Dec-11 Point
Change
--- ------ ------
Total Explicit Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A
-------------------------- ----- ----- ---
Google Sites 65.4% 65.9% 0.5
------------ ---- ---- ---
Microsoft Sites 15.0% 15.1% 0.1
--------------- ---- ---- ---
Yahoo! Sites 15.1% 14.5% -0.6
------------ ---- ---- ----
Ask Network 2.9% 2.9% 0.0
----------- --- --- ---
AOL, Inc. 1.6% 1.6% 0.0
--------- --- --- ---
*"Explicit Core Search" excludes contextually driven searches that do not
reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.
More than 18.2 billion explicit core searches were conducted in December (up 2 percent). Google Sites ranked first with 12 billion (up 3 percent), followed by Microsoft Sites with 2.7 billion (up 2 percent) and Yahoo! Sites with 2.6 billion. Ask Network delivered 531 million searches (up 3 percent), while AOL, Inc. rounded out the top five with 287 million.
comScore Explicit Core Search Query Report
December 2011 vs. November 2011
Total U.S. - Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
------------------------
Core Search Entity Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)
------------------ ---------------------------------
Nov-11 Dec-11 Percent
Change
--- ------ ------
Total Explicit Core Search 17,887 18,235 2%
-------------------------- ------ ------ ---
Google Sites 11,704 12,019 3%
------------ ------ ------ ---
Microsoft Sites 2,684 2,750 2%
--------------- ----- ----- ---
Yahoo! Sites 2,696 2,647 -2%
------------ ----- ----- ---
Ask Network 516 531 3%
----------- --- --- ---
AOL, Inc. 286 287 0%
--------- --- --- ---
U.S. Total Core Search
Google Sites accounted for 66.1 percent of total core search queries conducted (up 0.4 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.2 percent and Microsoft Sites with 13.8 percent. Ask Network comprised 2.6 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.4 percent.
comScore Total Core Search Share Report*
December 2011 vs. November 2011
Total U.S. - Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
------------------------
Core Search Entity Total Core Search Share (%)
------------------ --------------------------
Nov-11 Dec-11 Point
Change
--- ------ ------
Total Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A
----------------- ----- ----- ---
Google Sites 65.7% 66.1% 0.4
------------ ---- ---- ---
Yahoo! Sites 16.3% 16.2% -0.1
------------ ---- ---- ----
Microsoft Sites 14.0% 13.8% -0.2
--------------- ---- ---- ----
Ask Network 2.6% 2.6% 0.0
----------- --- --- ---
AOL, Inc. 1.4% 1.4% 0.0
--------- --- --- ---
* "Total Core Search" is based on the five major search engines, including
partner searches, cross-channel searches and contextual searches. Searches
for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the
core domain of the five search engines are not included in these numbers.
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Americans conducted 20.5 billion total core search queries in December (up 3 percent). Google Sites ranked first with 13.6 billion searches (up 4 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.3 billion (up 2 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 2.8 billion (up 2 percent).
comScore Total Core Search Query Report
December 2011 vs. November 2011
Total U.S. - Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
------------------------
Core Search Entity Total Core Search Queries (MM)
------------------ -----------------------------
Nov-11 Dec-11 Percent
Change
--- ------ ------
Total Core Search 19,906 20,525 3%
----------------- ------ ------ ---
Google Sites 13,074 13,560 4%
------------ ------ ------ ---
Yahoo! Sites 3,245 3,318 2%
------------ ----- ----- ---
Microsoft Sites 2,785 2,829 2%
--------------- ----- ----- ---
Ask Network 516 531 3%
----------- --- --- ---
AOL, Inc. 286 287 0%
--------- --- --- ---
"Powered By" Reporting
In December, 68.1 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google (vs. 67.6 percent in November) while 26.5 percent of searches were powered by Bing (vs. 26.7 percent in November).
About comScore
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SOURCE comScore, Inc.
