Google accounts for more than 65% of U.S. searches

Posted by Cyril Gros on December 13, 2007 at 11:25 AM

Search engines are the primary way Internet users navigate to sites within key categories. The latest survey from Hitwise clearly shows Google is in the top of the search engines chart.

More than six of ten online searches in the US were made through Google in November.

Google's share of the market rose to 65.1% from 61.84% in the same month a year ago, Hitwise said. In October, Google had a 64.49% share.

The search engines giant outruns its mains opponents. Its closest rival, Yahoo Search only represents 21.21% of the searches, followed by MSN Search with 7.09%. 4.63% of searches were made through Ask.com.

The remaining 46 search engines in the Hitwise rankings accounted for 1.96% of searches.

Health and medical had the highest share of search traffic at 44.6%. Travel, entertainment and business and finance are the other items searched. Business and finance represents 17.04% of searches topics.

According to the financial analyst Henry Blodget, the Google search business, in addition to its advertising sector “probably had better than 75% operating margins in the third quarter, a level that only its rival Microsoft could ever hope to match”.

According to Blodget, Google also booked free cash flow of $1.1 billion, more than any other media company. In addition, the company has grown to a $16 billion global business that is still growing at 50% per year.