August 18, 2004

Close to 85% of US Web visitors said they seek information using search engines, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

As a result, only e-mail ranks as a more popular online activity than the use of search engines (except for the viewing of news sites when there is breaking news).

What are the most popular search engines? Unsurprisingly, Google comes out on top as the engine of choice for 47% of respondents, almost twice as many people as those who cited Yahoo! as the engine they used most often. Further, MSN, AOL and AskJeeves trail the two leaders by a large margin.

The popularity of search engines translates into a quality of being indispensable: about one-third of respondents said they couldn't live without Internet search engines.

Still, exactly 50% said they like using them, but could go back to other ways of finding information; 17% said they wouldn't miss them at all. This may be because many use search engines to find information they wouldn't look up otherwise — 41% said "some" of the data they seek through search engines they wouldn't bother looking up otherwise, while 25% said "most" and 8% said "all."

The future popularity of search seems assured — 68% of respondents felt they are a fair and unbiased source of information and 87% said they find the information they are looking for "most of the time" or "always" when they use a search engine.

Still, the number of search engine users as a percentage of total Internet users doesn't have much room to grow. Usage statistics for the current Pew poll, conducted from May to June 2004, are essentially unchanged from a similar poll in January 2002, with both surveys showing that about 85% of Internet users using search, and about 30% saying they did so yesterday.

The questions which remain, therefore, are whether or not users' perceptions of the necessity of search engines will change over time and whether or not Google will remain the market leader.

Source: eMarketer

        

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