November Search Stats: Google’s Not the Competition, It’s the Environment in Which You Compete
November search metrics are beginning to roll in and they’re pretty much what you’d expect. According to Experian Hitwise, Google’s (GOOG) share of the U.S. search market rose 1.4 percent in November from a month earlier to 71.6 percent. Meanwhile, Yahoo’s (YHOO) share fell 4.6 percent to 15.4 percent and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Bing slid 2.4 percent to 9.3 percent (see table below; click to enlarge).
ComScore data on the search market are widely considered the industry standard and therefore more closely watched by Wall Street. Still, the big picture is clear: Google is not the competition, it’s the environment in which you compete. The IT industry used to say that about IBM (IBM), but today, the adage seems equally applicable to Google, which dominates the search market just as IBM once dominated the computer industry.