January 20, 2016

Comscore Releases December 2015 U.S. Desktop Search Engine Rankings

RESTON, VA, January 20, 2016 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a global media measurement and analytics company, today released its monthly Comscore qSearch™ analysis of the U.S. desktop search marketplace. Google Sites led the explicit core search market in December with 63.8 percent of search queries conducted.

U.S. Explicit Core Search
Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in December with 63.8 percent market share, followed by Microsoft Sites with 21.1 percent (up 0.2 percentage points) and Yahoo Sites with 12.4 percent. Ask Network accounted for 1.6 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1 percent.

Comscore Explicit Core Search Share Report* (Desktop Only)
December 2015 vs. November 2015
Total U.S. – Desktop Home & Work Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Explicit Core Search Share (%)

Nov-15

Dec-15

Point Change

Total Explicit Core Search

100.0%

100.0%

N/A

Google Sites

63.9%

63.8%

-0.1

Microsoft Sites

20.9%

21.1%

0.2

Yahoo Sites

12.5%

12.4%

-0.1

Ask Network

1.7%

1.6%

-0.1

AOL, Inc.

1.0%

1.0%

0.0

*“Explicit Core Search” excludes contextually driven searches that do not
reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.

17.4 billion explicit core searches were conducted in December, with Google Sites ranking first with 11.1 billion. Microsoft Sites ranked second with 3.7 billion searches (up 1 percent), followed by Yahoo Sites with 2.2 billion, Ask Network with 279 million and AOL, Inc. with 178 million.

Comscore Explicit Core Search Query Report (Desktop Only)
December 2015 vs. November 2015
Total U.S. – Desktop Home & Work Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)

Nov-15

Dec-15

Percent Change

Total Explicit Core Search

17,301

17,378

0%

Google Sites

11,053

11,095

0%

Microsoft Sites

3,624

3,667

1%

Yahoo Sites

2,155

2,159

0%

Ask Network

291

279

-4%

AOL, Inc.

179

178

-1%

“Powered By” Reporting
In December, 64.8 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google, while 31.4 percent of searches were powered by Bing (up 0.1 percentage points).

For more information: Request a Demo of qSearch

About Comscore
Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global media measurement and analytics company that makes audiences and advertising more valuable. Comscore helps media buyers and sellers understand and make decisions based on how consumers use different media, such as TV, video, mobile, desktop and more. Through its products and services, Comscore helps its more than 2,500 clients understand their audiences, know if their advertising is working, and access data where they want and need it. Please visit www.comscore.com to learn more.