Given the strong reliance internet users have on search engines to find all types of content, it’s important for marketers and techies to be well-versed in the industry’s nuances. To help, we’ve put together all the important search engine statistics you need for a comprehensive understanding of how this critical component of the internet functions. While Google naturally reigns supreme, the other players in the search engine business shouldn’t be ignored either if it’s a comprehensive strategy you’re after, so, read on.
Search Engine Statistics (Editor’s Choice)
- Google accounts for 78% of desktop and 89% of mobile search traffic.
- Baidu accounts for over 76% of China’s search engine market.
- Google processes around 63,000 search queries per second.
- Russia sent out more content removal requests than any other country in 2020.
- Around 93% of all web traffic is via a search engine.
- The average CTR for the first position on a Google search query is 19.3%.
- 46% of all Google searches are linked to something local.
- 98% of all internet users use a conventional search engine at least once a month.
Search Engine Ranking Statistics
1. Google accounted for 78.39% of worldwide desktop and laptop searches in September 2021.
The Google market share in desktop searches globally has hovered between 64% and 78% since January 2020. The other two top search engines, Bing and Baidu have been marginally apart from each other since 2020, with Bing ultimately taking the second spot at 10.54%. Baidu lost quite a bit of traffic towards September 2021, currently accounting for 4.26% of all desktop/laptop searches.
(NetMarketShare)
2. Baidu has a 7.8% mobile search market share as of September 2021.
As per the latest search engine stats, Baidu has the second-largest mobile market share among the best search engines, including Yahoo and Bing. The Yahoo market share in mobile search traffic is 0.88%, Bing stands at 0.74%, much lower than desktop/laptop use. Google’s share has decreased since September 2020 from 94% to 89%, while Baidu’s has grown from 4.54% during the same period.
(NetMarketShare)
3. 1.27% of all one-word search queries happen on Yahoo.
When looking at word number basis, Google dominates all categories—that’s no surprise. While hovering over 90% of all word numbers, it falls below 90% and we see a growth in the use of Yahoo, Bing, and unspecified engines. Though there’s no data on it, that one word might very well be “Google”.
(Statista)
4. Microsoft Sites’ market share among search engines grew from 12% to 26% in a decade.
Search engine usage statistics reveal Microsoft is the only company whose market share has been on the rise. Verizon Media has shown marginal growth in the last seven years and stands at 11.4%, which is nowhere near its share in 2008 at 20%. Shares of Ask Network and AOL (which has recently been purchased by Verizon Communications) has been falling since 2008.
(Statista)
5. Google gets the largest number of its visitors—more than a quarter—from the US.
It’s not surprising that the largest number of visitors (27%) to Google are from the United States. The next highest number comes from Brazil, at 4.58%. The United Kingdom takes third place at 4.12%, followed by India (3.9%), and Japan (3.49%). Despite Japan making the top five user count, Google’s share in the country is lower than the average, only at (75.71%).
(Statista)
6. Google accounts for 92.58% of all desktop search engine traffic in Brazil and 5.03% in China.
While Google is certainly the primary choice in the US, search engine statistics show that it also has a strong presence worldwide—minus China, where Baidu is widely used. It typically accounts for more than 80% of all desktop search traffic in most markets, including Brazil, India (95.45%), and Spain (91.97%).
Some locations like China and Russia meanwhile have local players, Baidu and Yandex, respectively, that take away a substantial chunk of the Google search engine market share. Google’s share stands at 5.03% in China and 48.78% in Russia.
(Statista)
7. Bing has a market share of 2.71%.
As Google’s dominance accelerated over the last decade, the Bing search engine market share has not seen substantial growth in ages. It peaked at 3.57% in 2011 and has been under 3% since 2015. Yet, its reach is still broad: it receives over one billion visits per day and is available in 105 languages in 283 countries, Bing search engine stats show.
(Backlinko)
8. Yahoo’s search engine sees over 700 million users on mobile monthly.
The Yahoo search engine market share has been losing relevance since 2028. Despite active daily user count not being far away from its competitor Bing, its desktop share decreased from 5.4% to 2.8%, and from 0.99% to 0.88 on mobile.
(Market.us, NetMarketShare)
9. Baidu accounts for over 76% of China’s search market.
Search engine traffic statistics confirm that one of the beneficiaries of Yahoo’s user base decline seems to be Baidu, China’s most popular search engine—so much so that now different sets of data show either Baidu or Yahoo as the third most popular search engine worldwide. Within the context of China, Baidu’s mobile search engine market share has seen particularly strong improvement a few years back when it controlled about 80% of the country’s search market, but a new contender Sogou is expected to close the gap soon.
(Statista)
10. Yandex has captured more than 90% of the total Russian search traffic.
If you’re interested in targeting the Russian market, Yandex is the best option, search engine usage stats prove. The search engine supports both Latin and Cyrillic and offers a helpful cloud storage service that allows you to search for files from the Yandex search bar. While this service ranks at the top among Russia’s most popular search engines—getting over 92% of its monthly users from Russia alone—it’s also popular in Ukraine, China, Belarus, and Germany.
(Clever Solution)
11. DuckDuckGo receives an average of more than 96 billion search queries per day.
Search engine user statistics of DuckDuckGo reveal that it handled over 31 million daily queries in 2018. The key reason for the rapid growth in DuckDuckGo’s popularity is the growing obsession with online privacy. With its privacy features, clean interface, and easy navigation, it’s the player to look out for in the search engine market.
(DuckDuckGo)
12. Ask.com has nearly 60.75 million monthly users.
Formerly known as Ask Jeeves, Ask.com is one of the oldest search engines around and has found a niche because of its unique question-answer format. Its algorithm favors expertise on a topic over popularity, making its search results significantly different from other search engines. Visitors spend an average of four minutes and 44 seconds, and it has a bounce rate of 53%. Most traffic comes from the US (22.37%), Japan (11.99%), and the UK (6.01).
(Clever Solution)
Google Search Engine Facts
13. Google processes around 63,000 search queries per second.
Google doesn’t share its research volume data. However, based on internet live stats, it’s estimated that it handles 63,000 search queries on average per second. This translates to 5.6 billion searches per day and nearly two trillion searches in a year.
(HubSpot)
14. Russia has the largest number of government and court requests for content removal from Google from January to June 2020.
As per Google’s search engine trends, with over 12,000 requests, Russia sent out official content removal requests more than any other country. South Korea (1,235) is the second, followed by India (1,024), Turkey (667), and Brazil (576). The United States has also sent out 426 requests during the same period.
(Statista)
15. Google takes into account 200+ factors before delivering the best results to users.
One of the most fascinating search engine facts is that magic happens in a fraction of a second. The aspects considered by Google include domain factors, page-level factors, site-level factors, backlink factors, etc. Of course, since Google doesn’t release detailed information regarding these factors, SEO specialists figure much of this out through third-party research and vigorous testing.
(Backlinko)
16. “Google” was the top search query on Google worldwide in 2021.
Search engine traffic stats further reveal that “YouTube” ranked second, reaching a close search volume at 85%. The term “weather” ranked fifth, “news” sixth, and “translate” ranked eighth. Among social platforms, Twitter had the lowest traffic, with Facebook ranking third and Instagram 10th. Coronavirus did not make the top 20, having held the fourth spot in 2020.
(Statista)
17. 74% of Google’s US paid search click share in 2021 Q1 was on mobile devices.
The corresponding Bing market share was 30%. Among mobile devices, 71% of Google’s paid click share was accounted for by phones, and 3% by tablets. The figures for Microsoft Advertising or Bing Ads were 25% for phones and 5% for tablets.
(Statista)
18. Google generated 61.7% of all core desktop search queries in the US as of June 2021.
Search engine stats reveal that in June 2021, Google processed over 13 million search queries, in comparison, Verizon Media (formerly known as Oath) processed 2.17 million search queries. Like desktop, Google was also the leading mobile search provider in the US, accounting for almost 93% market share in January 2021.
(Statista)
19. YouTube ads accounted for about 10% of Google’s overall revenue in Q1 of 2021.
Advertising on YouTube is placed through Google Adsense and Google Ad Manager, so Alphabet takes a share off of YouTube ads. During Q1 of 2021, it generated over $6.03 billion in revenue and showed the highest-ever recorded year-on-year growth of 49.13%.
(Business Quant)
20. The Google market cap is about $1.783 trillion.
Or rather, that’s the cap of its listed parent company, Alphabet Inc. Beyond search engine statistics, this number places it among the corporations with the largest market cap in the world, a list that includes other tech giants like Microsoft, Apple Inc., Amazon.com, and Facebook.
(Yahoo Finance)
21. Google’s 2020 ad revenue amounted to over $146 billion.
Google’s dominance in internet search also means that its ad revenue has been climbing steadily over the years. Advertising accounts for the majority of Google’s revenue, and most of it comes from search advertising.
(Statista)
Search Engine Usage Statistics
22. 27% of the global population is using voice search on mobile.
At least 28% of Google’s searches come from voice, and 44% of smartphone users who use voice search do so at least once a week. The adoption rate of the functionality is not limited to searches either, with 66% of early adopters of voice assistants using them at least once a week.
(Google)
23. From 2014 to 2019, 880,000 EU residents used their “right to be forgotten”.
The “right to be forgotten” came into the spotlight in 2014 through the high-profile case between the European Court of Justice and Google. The court declared that under certain circumstances, individuals may exercise their right to ask personal information about themselves to be delisted from Google.
(Pew Research)
24. The average person conducts 3-4 daily searches.
In what way and form does this happen? Search engine optimization statistics reveal that the average keyword is 1.9 total words. Not surprisingly, people usually use shorter keywords. In fact, keywords with over five words get an average of 10x fewer searches compared to 1-3-word-long search terms.
(HubSpot, Backlinko)
25. Only 22% of US citizens trust the news they obtain through online search.
The internet gives everyone a voice and reach. The downside is that it paves the way for misinformation to spread in a fraction of a second. Figures on news consumption show that citizens trust their local TV news the most, though some notable brands with digital editions also made the list, including the BBC (47%), the Wall Street Journal (46%), the New York Times (44%), and HuffPost (36%).
(Reuters Institute)
26. 46% of all Google searches are linked to something local.
One of the more pertinent takeaways from these Google search engine statistics is that a local SEO strategy is essential for most businesses. HubSpot also reports that 88% of customers who do a local search on their phones visit or call a store within 24 hours, meaning that the conversion rates are much higher with local searches. In fact, 18% of these local searches lead to a purchase, compared to 7% of non-local searches.
(HubSpot)
27. People find search engines the best source to check the weather and discover shops and restaurants, according to search engine usage statistics.
Reuters Institute found that when researching on local topics, most people (both at 24%) rely on online search to check the weather and find local shops and restaurants, followed by local services and housing and properties (both at 22%). Local newsletters are the most reliable source for topics such as politics, crime, or the economy. Perhaps not surprisingly, people relied more on social media and messaging apps (17%) to get informed about coronavirus than search engines (14%).
(Reuters Institute)
Search Engine Marketing Statistics
28. The average click-through rate (CTR) for the first position on a Google search query is 19.3%.
The average CTR for the second position is almost half, at 10.57%. Meanwhile, 75% of all searchers don’t go beyond the first page of their search results. No surprise, then, that websites try so hard to rank at the very top. For the same reason, the rank tracking software market has seen tremendous growth. The average CTR for the first position is also higher on desktop than it is on mobile. Branded searches meanwhile have higher CTRs on the first half of Google’s first page.
(Asset Digital, Blue Opps)
29. Around 70% of all keyword searches included image results on the SERPs.
We do live in a visually dominant world, and the appeal is clearly reflected in search engine algorithms. But interestingly, search engine optimization statistics reveal that images only account for 12% of the impressions in these results, while videos only made up 3.05%. Image click is next to nothing as well, only making up 0.62% of all clicks.
(SEO Clarity)
30. 38% of marketers see Google’s zero-click pages as the biggest threat to SEO.
Zero-click pages provide the answer to a search query at the top of a Google search. This way, users don’t have to look forward or click on anything to learn what they’ve asked. Naturally, this lowers the visibility chances of many websites.
Perceived threats also include Google updates (35%), ML/AI (28%), and removal of third-party cookies (23%).
(Search Engine Journal)
31. In AdWords, the average click-through rate is 3.17% for search throughout all industries.
Search engine statistics suggest that the corresponding figure for display is 0.46%. Of course, across specific industries, these figures can vary quite a bit. For example, the average CTR for Dating & Personals is quite high at 6.05%, while on the other end, we have 2.09% for Technology and 2.41% for B2B and Consumer Services.
(WordStream)
32. The average cost per click in AdWords is $2.69 for search throughout all industries.
As per the Google search engine stats, the corresponding figure for display is $0.63. Again, the costs can vary a fair bit across industries. Legal has a CPC (for search) of $6.75, and Consumer Services is close behind at $6.40. Among the lowest costs are $1.16 for Ecommerce and $1.43 for Advocacy.
(WordStream)
33. The average conversion rate in AdWords is 3.75% across all industries for search and 0.77% for display.
The search conversion rates saw a slight increase recently, while display conversion rates have fallen slightly. Once again, the highest conversion rates are seen in Dating & Personals (9.64%), while the lowest are in Advocacy (1.96%) and Real Estate (2.47%).
(WordStream)
34. Companies that combine organic SEO and PPC ads see 25% more clicks and 27% greater profits compared to using just one technique.
Even though search engine optimization stats show that SEO techniques tend to be more profitable than PPC, digital marketing professionals know that relying completely on just one of these is not as beneficial as using a combination of both. As PPC ads are displayed to those who will find them the most useful, combining your investment in both should get you notably better customer interaction.
(Safari Digital)
35. Having a video on your site’s landing page increases your chance of showing up on Google’s first page by more than 50%.
The use of video or image content continues to be a good way to optimize your site for different search engines. Similarly, marketers also need to make full use of their meta details to stand out in the crowd. And don’t forget about the text, either—Google’s first-page results contain nearly an average of 2,000 words. The full character limit of your pages should be used to provide visitors with as much information as possible while making sure that the keywords are used properly.
(Asset Digital)
Key Takeaways from Our Search Engine Statistics
While Google continues to lead the search market overwhelmingly, search engines like Bing, Baidu, and DuckDuckGo have maintained their relevance. Internet search on other platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon has also maintained its growth in the face of the increasing dominance of Google’s properties. Google search trends show significant opportunities for marketers to improve their CTRs and conversion rates. At the same time, ignoring other internet search engines can prove perilous for businesses, whether they’re targeting a general customer base or niche audiences.
Sources
- NetMarketShare
- Statista
- Statista
- Statista
- Statista
- Backlinko
- Market.us
- NetMarketShare
- Statista
- Clever Solution
- DuckDuckGo
- HubSpot
- Statista
- Backlinko
- Statista
- Statista
- Statista
- Business Quant
- Yahoo Finance
- Statista
- Pew Research
- Backlinko
- Reuters Institute
- HubSpot
- Blue Opps
- SEO Clarity
- Search Engine Journal
- WordStream
- Safari Digital
- Asset Digital
By Idil Woodall