Around the Net
The Answer's Always 'Google'
- Search Engine Land, Tuesday, August 18, 2009 1:51 PM
With billion of dollars of search-related ad dollars on the line, that's the game analysts are playing at the moment using an American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Business report commissioned by the University of Michigan, and sponsored and administered by Foresee Results.
The survey asks a representative sample of consumers to rate their experiences with portals and search engines according to several criteria, which produces an overall score on a 100 point scale.
Google is again on top in search with a score of 86, identical to last year. But, what does this mean for next year, when consumers will have had more time to familiarize themselves with Bing?
Survey says: "[The ACSI] is a predictor of future success on both the micro and macro level." For example: "Google's huge 10 point jump in satisfaction from 2007 to 2008 preceded a 7% increase in search market share from 2008 to 2009." As another example: "Satisfaction with Yahoo, on the other hand, dropped 2.5% from 2007 to 2008, preceding a 17.5% decrease in search market share and a 5% drop in portal market share."
But, what about Bing? In June, new data from StatCounter showed that Microsoft's new search engine had bypassed Yahoo as the No. 2 search engine in the U.S. According to the data, on June 4, Bing had over 15% of the U.S. search share, compared to Yahoo's 10%. On the following day, June 5, Yahoo had almost 11% while Bing had fallen below 10%. On June 6, Bing fell to 6.68% while Yahoo rose to 11.33%. Google, meanwhile, had seen its search share dip to 72% on the day that Bing shot up to No. 2 before going back up to 80%.
Obviously, the search market -- both in terms of consumer sentiment and usage -- is still highly amorphous, and we pity the analyst trying to predict gainers and decliners day-over-day, let alone year-over-year.
