Comscore Releases October 2011 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

RESTON, VA, November 11, 2011 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly Comscore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace. Google Sites led the explicit core search market in October with 65.6 percent of search queries conducted.

U.S. Explicit Core Search

Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in October with 65.6 percent market share (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 15.2 percent and Microsoft Sites with 14.8 percent (up 0.1 percentage point). Ask Network accounted for 2.9 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.5 percent.

Comscore Explicit Core Search Share Report*
October 2011 vs. September 2011
Total U.S. – Home & Work Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Explicit Core Search Share (%)

Sep-11

Oct-11

Point Change

Total Explicit Core Search

100.0%

100.0%

N/A

Google Sites

65.3%

65.6%

0.3

Yahoo! Sites

15.5%

15.2%

-0.3

Microsoft Sites

14.7%

14.8%

0.1

Ask Network

3.0%

2.9%

-0.1

AOL, Inc.

1.5%

1.5%

0.0

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

More than 18.0 billion explicit core searches were conducted in October, marking a 6-percent increase versus September. Google Sites ranked first with 11.9 billion (up 6 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.7 billion (up 4 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 2.7 billion (up 6 percent). Ask Network delivered 518 million searches (up 2 percent), while AOL, Inc. rounded out the top five with 277 million (up 5 percent).

Comscore Explicit Core Search Query Report
October 2011 vs. September 2011
Total U.S. – Home & Work Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)

Sep-11

Oct-11

Percent Change

Total Explicit Core Search

17,103

18,077

6%

Google Sites

11,171

11,863

6%

Yahoo! Sites

2,644

2,741

4%

Microsoft Sites

2,516

2,678

6%

Ask Network

507

518

2%

AOL, Inc.

265

277

5%

U.S. Total Core Search

Google Sites accounted for 66.2 percent of total core search queries conducted (up 0.8 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.3 percent and Microsoft Sites with 13.6 percent (up 0.2 percentage points). Ask Network comprised 2.6 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.4 percent.

Comscore Total Core Search Share Report*
October 2011 vs. September 2011
Total U.S. – Home & Work Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Total Core Search Share (%)

Sep-11

Oct-11

Point Change

Total Core Search

100.0%

100.0%

N/A

Google Sites

65.4%

66.2%

0.8

Yahoo! Sites

17.2%

16.3%

-0.9

Microsoft Sites

13.4%

13.6%

0.2

Ask Network

2.6%

2.6%

0.0

AOL, Inc.

1.4%

1.4%

0.0

* “Total Core Search” is based on the five major search engines, including
partner searches, cross-channel searches and contextual searches. Searches
for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the
core domain of the five search engines are not included in these numbers.

Americans conducted 20.3 billion total core search queries in October, up 5 percent versus September. Google Sites ranked first with 13.4 billion searches (up 6 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.3 billion and Microsoft Sites with 2.8 billion (up 7 percent).

Comscore Total Core Search Query Report
October 2011 vs. September 2011
Total U.S. – Home & Work Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Total Core Search Queries (MM)

Sep-11

Oct-11

Percent Change

Total Core Search

19,345

20,295

5%

Google Sites

12,659

13,431

6%

Yahoo! Sites

3,326

3,306

-1%

Microsoft Sites

2,588

2,762

7%

Ask Network

507

518

2%

AOL, Inc.

265

277

5%

“Powered By” Reporting

As a part of Comscore’s commitment to accurately represent the continued evolution of the search landscape, Comscore is providing insight into the share of organic Core Explicit searches that are powered by Google and Bing.

In October, 67.7 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google (vs. 67.4 percent in September) while 26.1 percent of searches were powered by Bing (vs. 26.7 percent in September).

About Comscore
Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Contact:
Adam Lella
Comscore, Inc.
+1 (312) 775-6474
press@comscore.com