Search Engines
Which Search Engine Should You Focus On?
The major players in search marketing are Google, and to some extent Bing and Yahoo. In most cases Google is the clear market leader in search volume. In an effort to catch up to Google, Bing, which is owned by Microsoft, entered into a search deal with Yahoo. This enabled the two search engines to share technology, results, and even advertising. As a result, search results from Bing are almost identical to Yahoo.
This section serves to give you a general understanding of the reach of all these engines so you can apply this to your own campaigns, based on the location of your business and/or the geographical areas you’d like your business to be marketing in.
*Data is current as of June 2017. Sources Wolfram | Alpha and Statcounter.com.
Canada
Internet Users: 31.72 million people (88.47% of the population)
Canadian Search Engine Market Share
In Canada, the overwhelming leader to search and navigate the Web is Google. This data lines up with the internal stats our own Canadian clients. Google.ca, which is the Canadian version of the search engine, is the number one most visited website in Canada. The Canadian version focuses slightly more on Canadian content and webpages from Canada. The second most popular website in Canada is Google.com, followed by Facebook.
USA
Internet Users: 239.6 million people (74.55% of the population)
USA Search Engine Market Share
While America still favors Google for their search queries, at a combined 21%, Bing and Yahoo can’t really be ignored when strategizing a search marketing campaign. And since Bing and Yahoo share very similar search results and advertising, you can easily focus on them simultaneously.
Global
Internet Users: 3.23 billion people (44% of the population)
Global Search Engine Market Share
Google still dominates globally, but another search engine is emerging with significant search market. Baidu is a search engine based in China and serves over half of that countries search queries. While not relevant outside of China, if your marketing is focused there, you can’t ignore it.
Posted on: 05/28/2012
Updated on: 06/15/2017
Posted by: Craig Hauptman – President & Founder
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