Comscore Releases September 2010 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

RESTON, VA, October 13, 2010 – 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 September with 66.1 percent of searches conducted, an increase of 0.7 share points from August 2010.

The September 2010 qSearch figures reflect the impact of Google Instant Search, Google’s new feature that delivers results in real-time while users type their query. To learn more about how Comscore is measuring search activity as users engage with Google Instant Search, please read our recent blog post on the subject: http://blog.comscore.com/2010/10/comscore_september_qsearch.html

U.S. Explicit Core Search

Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in September with 66.1 percent market share, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.7 percent and Microsoft sites with 11.2 percent. Ask Network captured 3.7 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL LLC Network with 2.3 percent.

Comscore Explicit Core Search Share Report*
September 2010 vs. August 2010
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Explicit Core Search Share (%)

Aug-10

Sep-10

Point Change

Total Explicit Core Search

100.0%

100.0%

N/A

Google Sites

65.4%

66.1%

0.7

Yahoo! Sites

17.4%

16.7%

-0.7

Microsoft Sites

11.1%

11.2%

0.1

Ask Network

3.8%

3.7%

-0.1

AOL LLC Network

2.3%

2.3%

0.0

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

More than 16.0 billion explicit core searches were conducted in September. Google Sites ranked first with 10.6 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites in second with 2.7 billion and Microsoft Sites in third with 1.8 billion. Ask Network accounted for 593 million explicit core searches followed by AOL LLC Network with 362 million.

Comscore Explicit Core Search Query Report
September 2010 vs. August 2010
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)

Aug-10

Sep-10

Percent Change

Total Explicit Core Search

15,695

16,021

2%

Google Sites

10,259

10,593

3%

Yahoo! Sites

2,728

2,682

-2%

Microsoft Sites

1,744

1,791

3%

Ask Network

598

593

-1%

AOL LLC Network

366

362

-1%

U.S. Total Core Search

Google Sites accounted for 62.9 percent of total core search queries conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 19.2 percent and Microsoft Sites with 12.5 percent. Ask Network captured 3.4 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL LLC with 2.0 percent. Google’s share increased by 2.4 percentage points, primarily due to the impact of Instant Search.

Comscore Total Core Search Share Report*
September 2010 vs. August 2010
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Total Core Search Share (%)

Aug-10

Sep-10

Point Change

Total Core Search

100.0%

100.0%

N/A

Google Sites

60.5%

62.9%

2.4

Yahoo! Sites

21.0%

19.2%

-1.8

Microsoft Sites

12.8%

12.5%

-0.3

Ask Network

3.5%

3.4%

-0.1

AOL LLC Network

2.2%

2.0%

-0.2

* “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 17.7 billion total core search queries in September with Google Sites leading with 11.1 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.4 billion and Microsoft Sites with 2.2 billion.

Comscore Total Core Search Query Report
September 2010 vs. August 2010
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Total Core Search Queries (MM)

Aug-10

Sep-10

Percent Change

Total Core Search

16,950

17,671

4%

Google Sites

10,259

11,119

8%

Yahoo! Sites

3,562

3,394

-5%

Microsoft Sites

2,166

2,204

2%

Ask Network

598

593

-1%

AOL LLC Network

366

362

-1%

“Powered By” Reporting

As a part of Comscore commitment to accurately represent the continued evolution of the search landscape, beginning this month, Comscore is providing insight into the share of algorithmic Explicit searches that are powered by Google and Bing, and branded as such to the consumer. Google’s “powered by” share is composed of searches conducted at Google entities, as well as AOL and most of Ask’s MyWebSearch. Bing’s “powered by” share is composed of searches conducted at Bing entities as well as Yahoo! Web Search, Yahoo! Image Search and Yahoo! Video Search. Some of Yahoo!’s in-channel searches, such as movies and finance, are still provided by Yahoo!

In September, 69.1 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google, while 23.5 percent of searches were powered by Bing organic results.

About Comscore
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Contact:
Adam Lella
Comscore, Inc.
+1 (312) 775-6474
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