Google increases share of UK search market

15 November 2006

New figures have shown that Google has continued its meteoric rise through the internet ranks to firmly establish itself as the UK's leading search engine.

With the company already responsible for a considerable percentage of UK internet searches, figures for October have seen it rise a further nine per cent year-on-year, Hitwise reports.

Though Google now powers 78 per cent of all UK searches, Yahoo! also experienced year-on-year growth for October, but nonetheless remains responsible for just 7.7 per cent of the market.

"Google and Yahoo! Search in particular are seeing strong growth in their share of the UK search market and their share of referrals to online retailers. Growth for these search engines seems to be organic, driven in part by toolbar usage but also growing familiarity with the Google and Yahoo! brands," said vice-president of Hitwise UK Research, Heather Hopkins.

Speaking on the same subject, Yahoo! chief executive Terry Semel has said this week that internet advertising has been underestimated.

Mr Semel also commented that more focus was needed on online marketing in order to fully exploit its potential.

"Let's start talking about audiences and advertisers and how we reach those audiences and it all needs to be integrated," he said at the annual conference of the Internet Advertising Bureau.

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Category: Google, Natural search, Yahoo