I’d bet you didn’t realize that for all the hype Google receives for having the greatest search share, Yahoo! still reigns supreme as the most used (trafficked) website. According to comScore latest numbers, Yahoo serves 33.6 billion page views per month easily eclipsing Google’s 28.7 billion. Traditional marketers (or, frankly, savvy marketers who recognize that ads are worth more than a click through and immediate sale) will still find Yahoo the ideal partner with whom to run massive ad campaigns reaching contextually targeted consumers.
But what of my headline? Google has not only claimed the web search crown but is now, arguably, the most popular internet site. In the same report, comScore cites Google’s unique U.S. audiences as topping 141 million users, beating Yahoo’s audience by almost 500k. Microsoft remains comfortably third as is usually the case against these two internet behemoths.
Personally, page views mean more. Google may now have the more recognizable brand and certainly, their ad model crushes all others when it comes to direct performance based marketing but for engagement, time spent, and other valuable metrics that online marketers too often overlook, Google has some work to do.
I read this article in the newspaper today. I find it funny that they mentioned Yahoo recieves more pageviews. I don’t think that’s an accurate indicator of the sites popularity, considering that surfers could be surfing though more than one SERP page as a result of a lack of relevancy in the search results.
Thanks Commercial Carpet Cleaning Guy
I don’t disagree with you in the least and I don’t think the articled does either, did it? They are stating that Google is now more popular. That said, Yahoo has greater engagement and time spent, as indicated by the page views consumed. Frankly, while your perspective on search quality is accurate, so too is the bottom line that while Yahoo is constantly pitted against Google as a Search Engine, Yahoo’s pvs come from Finance, Sports, Hotjobs, Personals, Answers, etc. Much more content that they create as a portal, making them a more attractive partner for brand advertising.