Search Engine Study

A recent study of Nielsen/NetRatings revealed that a minority of searchers exclusively use only one of the top three search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN Search.

Which search engines do most web users use?

According to the Neilson/NetRatings study, 58 percent of those using Google to do searches also visited at least one of the other top two search engines, MSN Search and Yahoo. This shows that even though Google's market share is dominant now, there is plenty of room for other search systems to flourish.

The use of more than one search engine site is not limited to Google's users. Almost 71 percent of those who searched at Yahoo also visited at least one of the other top two search engines (MSN and Yahoo) and 70 percent of those who searched at MSN visited either/both Google and Yahoo.

"While it shouldn't surprise anyone that Google is the search engine to beat, it is critical that all of the major search players, including Google, recognize that they exclusively own only a minority of their users," said Ken Cassar, director, strategic analysis, Nielsen/NetRatings.

"This highlights an opportunity and a threat to all of the established players in the market, and underscores the importance of continued innovation in a highly competitive market that is anything but mature."

What does this mean to website owners and administrators?

To get the best results you should not ignore the other search engines. You should optimize your site to work well for multiple search engines. How to do this will be in upcoming articles. So stay tuned!

Another approach is to optimize specific pages for each major Search Engine. So have some pages for Google, others for MSN Search, and yet some more for Yahoo.

It is much easier to get targeted users from the other engines because almost all web site owners use Google.

Conclusion

Google is currently the most important search engine but others are quickly catching up. If you optimize your web pages for multiple search engines, you will get targeted traffic from multiple locations. Do not count out Yahoo, MSN, and other smaller search sites. By doing so you will be less dependant on one search site, such as Google.