Google continued to dominate search in May, accounting for 72.2% of all US searches conducted in the four weeks ended May 29, 2010, up 1% from April, while Yahoo, Bing, and Ask received 14.4%, 9.2%, and 2.1%, respectively, according to Experian Hitwise data.
The remaining 74 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 2.03% of US searches.
Search Traffic to Key US Industries
Search engines remain the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories.
Double-digit increases were recorded from April to May in the share of traffic going directly from search engines to the Automotive, Business and Finance, Entertainment, News and Media, Shopping, and Social Networking categories.
Among the top 3 search engines, Google sent the most visits to Automotive, Health, Shopping, and Travel categories, while Yahoo Search registered monthly gains in the Automotive and Shopping categories, 13% and 10%, respectively.
Bing's share registered triple-digit growth among two categories—Health and Shopping, and double-digit growth in Automotive and Travel.
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Shift to Two- and Three-Word Queries
The number of longer search queries—those averaging searches of five or more words—declined 2% from April, while the number of shorter search queries—those averaging one to four words in length—was unchanged.
Searches of two-words comprised the plurality of searches, some 23.3% of all queries, up 1% from April. The number of three-word searches also increased 1%.
