• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer, March 17, 2006

The comScore Networks monthly search analysis of activity across competitive search engines revealed that Google reinforced its status January 2006 as market leader of the U.S. search market with a 41.4 percent share of all searches submitted, up more than 6 share points versus year ago.  Yahoo! maintained the #2 spot in the ranking with 28.7 percent share of all searches, while MSN ranked third capturing 13.7 percent of all online searches.

Dr. Magid Abraham, President and CEO of comScore Networks, said "This report provides evidence that the growth in the U.S. Search market is slowing. The good news for search companies is that the utilization of search queries for advertising purposes continues to increase. In December 2005, 57.2 percent of search query results included a sponsored advertisement, up from 49.1 percent a year earlier. Additionally, the international search market continues to be strong, with a growth rate of 34 percent..."

Total Internet Searches January 2006 vs. January 2005Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users

• Searches Jan-05(Billions)            4.95           
• Searches Jan-06(Billions)            5.48
• Percentage Change            10.7%

Source: comScore Search

Additional findings from the January monthly analysis include:

• Americans conducted 5.48 billion searches online in January, up 11 percent from the previous year. This growth reflects a substantial slowdown from the 42 percent surge seen in January 2005 versus the previous year. 
• Google Sites led the group with 2.3 billion searches followed by Yahoo! Sites (1.6 billion searches), MSN-Microsoft Sites (752.5 million searches), Time Warner (432.6 million searches), and Ask Jeeves (307.3 million searches).
• Google Sites won top honors in share of tool bar search, capturing 49.5 percent of all tool bar searches, while Yahoo! Sites secured 45.5 percent.

The release is available for download here.