The search conversation will continue to focus heavily on Google this year, based on recent research from Define Media Group. The consulting firm tracked traffic to 94 sites across various industry verticals between January and November 2014 and found that Google accounted for a whopping 93% of online and mobile web organic search traffic worldwide, leaving Bing and Yahoo to account for a mere 6% combined.
Recent analysis by Merkle | RKG found similar results when looking at the US only. The search and digital marketing agency reported that in Q3 2014, Google increased its share of organic search visits in the US to 83%. This was at the expense of Bing, which saw its portion fall slightly to 8%; Yahoo held steady at around 7%.
Both studies show higher figures than recent analysis by comScore, which put Google’s share of monthly online searches in the US at 67.3%. Microsoft sites accounted for 19.4% and Yahoo sites for 10.0%. comScore looked at desktop searches only.
RKG reported that mobile was fueling overall organic search growth. Between Q3 2013 and Q3 2014, mobile organic search visits rose 45%, compared with just 3% for overall organic. Google ruled here, too, with an 85.6% share of US mobile organic search visits coming from the site, vs. 8.4% for Yahoo and 5.6% for Bing. StatCounter found almost the exact same results, reporting that 85.6% of total mobile search referrals in the US in Q3 2014 (excluding tablets) came from Google, 9.7% from Yahoo and 4.3% from Bing.