Google's Market Share

Here's a break down of the search engine market today, in 2010:

1. Google - market share 72%
2. Yahoo - market share 14.5%
3. Bing - market share 9.5%
4. Ask - market share 2.0%
5. AOL - marketing share 1%
6. Others - 1%

Here's a break down of the search engine market in 2005:

1. Google - 49%
2. Yahoo - 21.5%
3. MSN (now Bing) - 12.5%
4. Others - 17%

Google has increased their market share to almost 75%. Yahoo, Microsoft (Bing), and AOL are waning. Google now does three times as many searches as the rest of the search market combined.

If your company depends on the web, you need to come up in Google searches. If you don't, you're essentially locked out. There is nothing on the horizon to suggest that Google won't continue to increase their market share. When it comes to search engine marketing, Google is it. The others aren't significant.

Embracing the Google philosophy is the key to success on the Web. Google's founders are engineers - and graduate students. They love term papers, research papers, and technical data. The key to getting listed in their search engine is to write and publish specific information. Sites heavy in images and light on text generally don't fare well. Sites with research information (text heavy) do great. The more esoteric the subject matter the better. Google's mission is to bring relevant, technical, written information to the top.

When allocating marketing dollars, put your money into Google, either directly through Adwords (Google's paid advertising program) or indirectly with SEO (called organic listings). Anything else, no matter how great they claim to be, is not as effective as Google.