Search Engine industry

As Internet started to grow and became an integral part of day-to-day work, it became almost impossible for a user to fetch the exact or relevant information from such a huge web. And hence ‘Search Engines’ were developed. Search engines became so popular that now more than 80% of the web-site visitors come from the search engines. But what exactly is a Search Engine? According to webopedia, “Search Engine is a program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found”.

Search engine industry is dominated by 3 major players- Google, Yahoo! and MSN with a market share of 35%, 32% and 16% respectively (According to searchenginewatch.com survey, 2004). A report released in March 2005 indicated that the search engines are being used between 2 to 3.5 billion times per day to find information online. And of course people using search engines are on the hunt for specific information and hence the audience is highly targeted. There are many other search engines such as AskJeeves, AOL, and Excite etc which are also famous among net users. But what is attractive is the stats regarding usage of search engines.

A nationwide phone survey of 1,399 Internet users between May 14 and June 17 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows:

• 84% of internet users have used search engines. On any given day online, more than half those using the Internet use search engines. And more than two-thirds of Internet users say they use search engines at least a couple of times per week.
  
  
• The use of search engines usually ranks only second to email use as the most popular activity online. During periods when major news stories are breaking, the act of getting news online usually surpass the use of search engines.
  
  
• There is a substantial payoff as search engines improve and people become more adept at using them. Some 87% of search engine users say they find the information they want most of the time when they use search engines.
  
  
• The convenience and effectiveness of the search experience solidifies its appeal. Some 44% say that most times they search they are looking for vital information they absolutely need.