• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, August 16, 2011

Boosting the economy could become as easy as googling or binging something from a Web browser. It turns out there are clear and measurable benefits to searching on the economy. Search technologies accounted for some $780 billion of the global economy in 2009, equal to the gross domestic product (GDP) of the Netherlands and Turkey, according to a report from McKinsey & Company. The U.S. search-related revenue accounted for 1.2% of the nation's GDP.

In the report titled "The impact of Internet technologies: Search" McKinsey calls these estimates "conservative," although the data originates from 2009 and 2010, and was analyzed earlier this year.

The analysis finds search activity had measurable impact for the GDP, making each search worth about 50 cents. The report explains that the industry has likely surpassed this number, as this partial estimate comes from 2009 and 2010 data. In addition, not all value surfaces in GDP. Many consumer benefits result from lower prices, time savings, and education.

In 2010, an average Internet user in the United States performed some 1,500 searches, contributing to 1.6 trillion searches annually worldwide, according to the report -- pointing to comScore numbers.

The report suggests that the return on investment (ROI) for deploying search excels far beyond other media. Here, advertisers typically earn an average ROI of 7:1. As a value of time saved when searching for information or creating content, others can do even better in terms of ROI. Those who are seeking information, creating content, or looking for products to purchase can earn an ROI of 10:1 on average. Still, enterprises earn more -- with an ROI of 17:01, as a result of time saved.

While most research suggests that search created value by saving time, increasing price transparency and raising awareness, the report points to nine sources of value: better matching, time saved, raising awareness, price transparency, long-tail offering, people matching, problem solving, new business models, and entertainment.

The report calculates the worth for the value created for consumers at around $20 per consumer per month in France, Germany, and the United States in 2009, and $2 to $5 in India and Brazil, for example.

Ten times as many product searches are now carried out on Amazon and eBay -- both vertical search sites -- as on Google Product search, according to the study. Perhaps that's why Google today launched a product search app for the tablet.