Why You Shouldn’t Count Bing Out
Everyday, we try to keep you up to date with what’s going on in the search engine and interactive marketing worlds. Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about a recent report we first read about on Search Engine Land that we feel could impact the future of SEO, if the trends continue in this direction.
So what does the report say? After a study of US searches in August, it has been revealed that Bing and Yahoo have slowly been chipping away at some of Google’s search domination this year. Since Bing began powering Yahoo’s search results last summer, the two search engines have managed to siphon about 4% of Google’s market share of search.
What’s the Exact Data?
This data comes from an Experian Hitwise report released yesterday. In a press release entitled, “Google Share of Searches at 65% in August 2011,” Experian Hitwise revealed the following data:
“Google accounted for 65.08 percent of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending August 27, 2011. The combined Bing-powered search comprised 28.99 percent of searches for the moth, with Yahoo!Search and Bing receiving 15.89 percent and 13.10 percent, respectively.”
Bing is (slowly) taking a piece of Google’s search pie, according to results from an August Experian Hitwise report. The percentage of Bing-powered search (28.99%) is comprised of the Yahoo search numbers (15.89%,) and Bing search numbers (13.10%) added together. So, together, these bing-powered search modes make up 28.99% of the search market share. Those are the percentages from August. July’s numbers were as follows: Google: 66.05% (so, Google has since seen a 1% decrease) and Bing-powered search 28.05% (Bing-powered search has since seen a 3% increase). Bing-powered search separated into its two engines: Yahoo had 15.07% (search.yahoo.com has since seen a 5% increase), and Bing 12.98% (Bing.com has since seen a 1% increase).
Other Important Revelations
The Experian Hitwise also reported that (very) long-tail queries (“those averaging five to eight words or more”) increased between July and August of this year by three percent. Nearly 27% of searches, however, were one-word searches, while queries consisting of between one and four words actually decreased by 1% in that same span of one month. Obviously, for Search Engine Optimization purposes, this is important knowledge to have.
Using longer tail and single word keywords can more than likely benefit your SEO campaign right now. Many SEOs, including those here within our SEO Agency, will likely want to analyze and re-strategize in light of this new report.
Why is This Report Significant?
Because in the year since Yahoo! has been using Bing’s search results, Google’s search market share has declined. The teaming up of these two engines, both powered by Bing, has allowed them to begin chipping away at Google’s domination. It is, therefore, important for SEOs not to count Bing out, and to continue to stay updated with Bing’s Webmaster Tools, algorithms and ranking factors. In the future, Google may very well be sharing its monopoly on search and therefore search engine marketing (not that optimizing for Bing is currently a non-concern, but it certainly seems like it is going to gain even more importance as time goes on).
More Information
For any questions related to the popular search engines, SEO, or social media, please continue to visit our blog for daily posts about the goings on in the interactive marketing space. For more specific questions related to your business, contact our Atlanta SEO Agency at 770-481-1766.
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