February 24, 2004

Search engines continue to be the primary tool people use to navigate the Web," said Jason Levin, analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings.

Nielsen//NetRatings, the global standard for Internet audience measurement and analysis, reports that 114.5 million or 39 percent of Americans used a search engine during January 2004. The 114.5 million unique users, representing 76 percent of the active online U.S. population, each spent nearly forty minutes using search engines during the month.

Nielsen//NetRatings also reports the top five search destinations were Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN Search, AOL Search and Ask Jeeves during January 2004. Fifty-nine million users or 39 percent of active Internet users visited Google (See Table 1). Thirty percent or 46 million visitors used Yahoo! Search, while 45 million or 30 percent went to MSN Search. Rounding out the top five were AOL Search and Ask Jeeves with 23 million and 13 million unique users respectively.

"Search engines continue to be the primary tool people use to navigate the Web," said Jason Levin, analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "With the big search players having recently updated their search capabilities, Internet users should expect to find even better search results from the major search engines in the near future."

Online Shoppers Turning to Search Engines
Online shoppers set a trend during the 2003 holiday season by turning to search engines to find online stores.** When Nielsen//NetRatings polled holiday online shoppers asking them which search engines they used to find online stores, 36 percent replied that they had used Google (See Table 2).

Twenty-five percent of respondents went to Yahoo! Search, while 14 percent visited MSN Search. Ask Jeeves and AOL Shopping round out the top five with five percent each.

"Online shoppers have turned to search engines not only to find stores but to comparison shop," said Levin. "Search engines are quickly becoming the first destination for online shoppers, and we expect that trend to continue through 2004."

Search Engine Users Seek Relevant and Credible Results
Nielsen//NetRatings WebIntercept service surveyed Internet users asking them to rank in order of importance a series of features they thought were critical when conducting a search. The most important feature users sought was "can find relevant information" with 52 percent of respondents ranking it number one.

"Can get credible results" at 34 percent ranked second while "get results quickly" came in third with 33 percent, followed by "has an easy to use interface" at 19 percent. "Is well known" and "has cool design" tied for fifth place at 18 percent.

"The message is loud and clear -- search engine users value relevant and credible information over all else and they are choosing their search engines accordingly," continued Levin.

Example: The data indicates that 34.4 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the Terra Lycos-owned sites or launched a Terra Lycos-owned application during the month, and each person spent, on average, a total of 9 minutes and 27 seconds at one or more of their sites or applications.

A parent company is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single entity. A brand is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs that has a consistent collection of branded content.

Reach is a measure of the unduplicated audience that visits a property. The data is expressed as the percentage of the total universe of Internet users who logged onto the Internet at least once during the reporting period.

Source: Computers / Electronics News, PR NewsWire

        

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