In the search engine space, there's Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), and then there's everyone else. According to comScore Networks, Google once again claimed a thicker slice of the search engine pie in April.
The company processed 43.1% of all domestic search requests last month. That compares favorably to the 42.7% slice it commanded in March and the 36.5% chunk it feasted on a year earlier.
| April 2005 | April 2006 | % Gain/Loss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 36.5% | 43.1% | 6.6 | |
| Yahoo! | 30.7% | 28% | (2.7) |
| MSN | 16.1% | 12.9% | (3.2) |
| Time Warner | 9% | 6.9% | (2.1) |
| Ask | 6.1% | 5.8% | (0.3) |
Naturally, you can't grow market share without wresting it away from rivals. Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) AOL have all shed a little skin in the game. They're still growing their own searches, but Google is growing that much faster -- for the ninth straight month.
Somewhat surprisingly, IAC/InterActiveCorp's (NASDAQ:IACI) Ask.com has also surrendered bits of market share. Despite a memorable ad campaign and a new Jeeves-less look under Barry Diller's media empire, the company's slice of the revenue mix slipped from 6.1% in April of 2005, to 5.9% in March of 2006, to 5.8% in April.
Rearing its head for the first time in the comScore ranking was News Corp.'s (NYSE:NWS) MySpace.com. The popular social-networking site knows that there's money to be made off its traffic, and even though most folks searching through its site are looking for like-minded users, MySpace's search feature defaults to Web-wide searches rather than searching only within the site itself. It's a smart move to make more money from MySpace's growing user base.
So let's give Google and MySpace a Stephen Colbert tip of the hat, and reserve a wag of the finger for the slower search sites that are watching Google pull further and further away with every passing month. Yahoo! and MSN have been talking a big game about improving their searches, but it seems consumers still aren't buying it.
You go, Google.
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Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is a huge fan of Google. It would be his homepage if not for Fool.com. Rick does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy. Rick is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.
