Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - UK
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November 28, 2006
Google and Yahoo! UK Comparison
I provided Paul Durman from the Sunday Times with some data on how Yahoo! and Google compare in the UK, following the "Peanut Butter Manifesto". Now that his story has appeared, I thought I'd share the data.
I created a custom category for both Google and Yahoo! that includes the top 20 properties for each, based on share of UK internet visits in the week ending 18th November 2006. The table showing the top 20 properties for both brands is included below. (For those of you looking for US data, Bill Tancer posted some similar statistics for the US market last week.)
Both Google and Yahoo! are growing their market share of visits. Google is growing more quickly, but this seems to be driven by the search engine and acquisitions of YouTube and Blogger.
Google's position in the UK market is dominated by the search engine. Two thirds of visits to the top 20 Google properties go to www.google.co.uk. www.google.co.uk is the #1 ranked website in the UK based on share of UK internet visits. It received 8.1% of all UK internet visits last week, compared to the #2 ranked website, www.ebay.co.uk at 2.99% of all UK internet visits.
Visits to www.google.co.uk have been increasing and Google's share of the search market is also increasing - up 9% year on year in October to 78%. This figure is based on the share of executed searches, rather than visits to the website.
- The 20th most visited Google property ranked #492 last week. This compares to #263 for Yahoo! 20th ranked property. (Based on share of UK internet visits in the week to 18th November 2006). This means that Yahoo! has far more highly ranked properties than Google. Google's size is really driven by the search engine, as outlined above.
- The top 20 Google properties account for 10.73% of all UK internet visits. Just over 1 in every 10 UK internet visits goes to one of the top 20 Google properties.
- Yahoo!'s top 20 properties account for just under half the market share of Google's top 20 - accounting for 4.5% of all UK internet visits.
- The top 20 Google properties together have seen their market share grow 4% in the past month, 7% in the past 6 months and 47% in the past year.
- Yahoo! is also growing. The top 20 Yahoo! properties together have seen their market share grow 1% in the past month, 7% in the past 6 months and 12% in the past year.
Google dominates the search market in the UK, much more so than in the US. However, Yahoo! is making strong gains. Google powered 78% of UK internet searches in the four weeks to 21st October 2006, up 9% year on year. Yahoo! took the #2 rank based on share of executed UK searches with 7.7% of the search market. Yahoo! Search's share of the market has risen 4% in the past six months.
The Google properties (among the top 20) that have experienced the strongest gains in market share of UK internet visits recently are:
- Google UK Maps +74% in market share of UK visits in the past 6 months
- Blogger: up +132% in the past 6 months and up +224% in the past year
- Froogle: up 51% in the past 6 months
- Google Pack: up +265% in the past 6 months and 39% in the past month
- UK and Ireland News: up +43% in market share of UK visits in the past 6 months
- Download: up +105% in the past six months
- Flickr: up +21% in the past six months
- Messenger: up +228% in the past six months (note this is visits to the website, not the downloaded application)
- Answers ranked at #21 but I thought it worth mentioning that Yahoo! Answers has seen it's market share of visits increase 70% in the past three months and 28% in the past month.
Posted by Heather Hopkins at 04:09 PM
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» Search Engine Property Stats: Google & Yahoo from Search Engine Land: News About Search Engines & Search Marketing
Last night Bill Tancer complied an "extended" list of statistics and numbers on Google's Properties, which shows the market share of all of Google's properties as they compete with each other. With no surprise, Google's search product captures the bulk... [Read More]
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Comments
Hi Heather
I presume the #2 Google site refers to google.com?
Out of curiosity, do you track % searches on country-only indices?
Best rgds
Richard
Posted by: Richard Hearne at November 28, 2006 08:49 AM
Richard - we do report our data country by country. We cover UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. We report each country separately.
Wouldn't be wise to aggregate the countries and report as worldwide. :)
Posted by: Heather Hopkins at December 1, 2006 07:50 AM
Hi Heather...
Does the Google Mail % (Property #5)include googlemail.co.uk and UK users of gmail.com?
Cheers
Mike
Posted by: Mike Forte at December 8, 2006 05:18 AM
Mike, In this table we are reporting on UK visits, so yes, we are reporting UK users visiting Google Mail or GMail.
We have 11 properties aggregated to that, including mail.google.com, www.gmail.com, gmail.google.com. The URL googlemail.co.uk doesn't seem to exist so that is not included.
Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks!
Posted by: Heather Hopkins at December 11, 2006 01:32 AM
interesting article, i do agree that
Google dominates the search market in the UK, i have done research in the UK about SEO, i thought it would be the other way around at first
Guess i was proven wrong
Cheers Stephen
Posted by: Stephen Bray at March 26, 2007 05:14 AM
Excellent article! Very useful information for SEO purposes. Optimising sites for Google seems to be very much the way to go in the UK.
Posted by: Chris Smith at May 23, 2007 01:32 AM
Wow, those are some pretty amazing statistics you have there. It’s very interesting to see how Google ranks verses Yahoo, and I find it really interesting that Google is so far ahead in the UK than it is in the US. Why do you think that is? It’s also interesting to compare Google to Microsoft…I have a feeling we’ll be hearing antitrust and monopoly accusations before long, especially if Google can reproduce it’s amazing lead over Yahoo in other countries. The smaller search engines are pretty much dust by now…anyone ever use sites like altavista or dogpile anymore? They used to be huge, but now, like Microsoft’s competitors, they’re gone. But I think it’s a tradeoff we all accept – monopoly by one company in exchange for the fact that that company tends to give us what we want. Google wouldn’t have such domination if we all didn’t like it and use it.
Posted by: rugs at July 26, 2007 05:47 AM
I’m sorry for asking but may I know the background of the study or survey done to come up with this comparison chart? It’s very easy to come up with numerical figures especially if we want to show that one channel or SE is better than the other. I worked for a radio station before and this isn’t new to me.
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