Search sites measured by comScore under their new qScore 2.0 methodology will benefit from the hosted and affiliated search traffic they send back to the main search engine. It’s a scenario that offers Google a heaping helping of share by comScore’s reckoning.
ComScore qScore Tallies Well For Google
A couple of significant changes by comScore will alter the landscape of how they assess search engines.
Steve Dennen, senior director of product management at comScore, said in a presentation today how qSearch 2.0 will expand the collection of search data in existing, and to new, markets. They will extend the search universe beyond core engines, accounting for the rise of sites like Wikipedia.
But when it comes to those core search sites, Google wins a nice increase in the figures comScore now calculates for the qScore. ComScore will treat multi-tab searches for the same query as distinct searches, rather than as one search with multiple page results.
Google really gets a boost from the addition of hosted and affiliate site searches to the core numbers. Between its search boxes on numerous websites and the acquisition of YouTube and its traffic, Google’s share of search under the qScore 2.0 calculation gave it 54.9 percent market share for June 2007, and 55.2 percent for July.
Dennen acknowledged the changes would benefit Google disproportionately, as qScore 2.0 includes these chief contributors. YouTube essentially added about 20 percent to Google’s market share by comScore’s figures.
The order of the top five search engines didn’t change with the new methodology. Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask.com, and Time Warner sites including AOL rounded out the group. Only Ask and AOL look like they will jostle for the four and five spots unless one of them can make some dramatic inroads on the share owned by the top three.
