Turbo Search Engines

It appears 2005 was the year of the turbocharged, high-performance search engine, and this past December’s figures confirm it. A Nielsen/NetRatings report shows there were over 5.1 billion searches in the U.S. this December. This represents a whopping 55 percent increase over the December 2004 numbers.

Google won the lion’s share of the December increases showing a gain of 75 percent! They also had almost 49 percent of all searches in December, with Yahoo second at just over 21 percent of the market. The report also stated there are now 207 million Americans online.

Apparently, advertisers are noticing this usage growth. Search engine advertising in North America also rose an impressive 44 percent in 2005 according to SEMPO. The total 2005 search engine ad spend was $5.75 billion.