Google Continues Search Dominance

It appears Google's competitors in Internet search have an uphill climb. New research shows how the company is putting even more distance between itself and its rivals.

Efficient Frontier, a search-marketing tech provider, examined more than 17 billion impressions and 270 million clicks on search ads running through its system during the fourth quarter of 2007 and the same period a year earlier. The results show the yawning gap Google has opened with its rivals, Microsoft and Yahoo!, because it continues to attract a growing majority of Internet searches.
Google's share of search spending was 77 percent in the latest holiday quarter, up from 71 percent a year earlier. During the same period, Yahoo!'s share dropped by 25 percent, from 24 percent of the market to 17 percent. Microsoft remained a small presence, taking just 6 percent of the market, up from 5 percent in the year-ago period.

The extent of Google's dominance is even clearer in where new search spending goes. Overall search ad spending increased 29 percent from Q4 2006 to Q4 2007. Nearly all of it (97 percent) went to Google.read full story