comscore

Google surpasses Yahoo--for a second time?

Google passed Yahoo in its share of monthly visitors in the United States for the first time this April, buoyed by growth in search and YouTube videos, according to ComScore statistics released Thursday.

However, underscoring the variability of this sort of measurement, which extrapolates overall data from the usage of a "panel" of users at home and work, ComScore rival Nielsen Online released its own data as well with some different results. Although it also showed Google as No. 1 in terms of unique users, it said Google passed Yahoo way back in January 2007.

ComScore said Google … Read more

Web analytics and Twitter: An incomplete story

Hitwise released research this week reporting that Twitter had a nice relative growth spurt this year. The key word is relative. The site grew from a market share of a whopping 0.0005 percent (U.S. Internet visits to Twitter.com) to 0.0016 percent in April. That places the Twitter.com site at number 439 on the list of social networks. I'll bet if you try to name the 438 social nets above Twitter you'll run out of gas well before you hit 50.

You've got to start somewhere, though, so I don't quite understand … Read more

ComScore jumps to explain Google discrepancy

ComScore, an analyst firm left holding the bag when Google's financial performance far exceeded analyst expectations, scrambled Friday to reconcile its pessimistic statistics with reality.

At the heart of the matter is a key Google advertising performance measurement called paid clicks--the number of times Web searchers clicked on one of the ads Google shows alongside search results. On Tuesday, ComScore reported Google's paid clicks grew 1.8 percent from the first quarter of 2007 to the same period in 2008. But on Thursday, Google said the growth actually was 20 percent.

The gap prompted Google Chief Executive Eric … Read more

Is there something wrong with Google's search ads?

Google's first-quarter earnings report, scheduled for Thursday afternoon, just got a lot more interesting.

Late Tuesday night, those Internet traffic trackers at ComScore put out some lousy news: growth in paid-search clicks in the United States is slowing down.

In fairness to Google, it did better than its competitors, according to a JPMorgan report issued Wednesday morning. (ComScore's paid-click numbers are not typically issued directly to public. We hear about them when Wall Street analysts issue their own reports on the data.)

Paid-search clicks at Google were up 2.7 percent in March, compared to the same month … Read more

Procrastinate much? Americans watched more than 10 billion online videos in February

All that time you waste at the office watching stupid cat videos on YouTube adds up: numbers released by ComScore on Wednesday indicate that U.S. Web users watched more than 10 billion online videos during the month of February. That's a 66 percent gain from the previous year.

Leading the pack, with a 35.4 percent share of videos viewed throughout the month, were Google-owned video sites--in other words, YouTube. The total video count for Google, according to ComScore, is about 3.6 billion, 3.42 billion of which were YouTube-specific. In a distant second place is News … Read more

Study: Google extends search lead over rivals

Google gained market share in the United States over search rivals in March, rising 0.53 percentage points to an all-time high of 59.8 percent, according to new ComScore results released Tuesday.

"We were somewhat surprised at the March uptick, especially since the company had previously alluded that the unusual Easter timing could impact search activity," said Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney in a report Tuesday that quoted the ComScore numbers.

Yahoo, meanwhile, slipped 0.3 percentage points to 21.3 percent, and Microsoft dropped 0.2 percentage points to 9.4 percent--both figures are record lows for … Read more

Sports fans boost ESPN traffic; top sites unfazed

Sports fans boosted ESPN's status in ComScore's latest measurements of Web site traffic, but the top sites kept their rankings unchanged during March.

ESPN jumped from 46th place with 17.8 million page views from U.S. visitors in February to 34th place with 22.4 million page views in March, the month of the March Madness college basketball tournament and the Major League Baseball season opening, ComScore said.

Sports-related online gambling sites also saw a surge, with Sportingbet's visitor tally jumping 35 percent to 975,000, ComScore said. Upickem.net and SportsBetting.com, while smaller, also … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 685: Do Androids Dream?

HTC has subtly referenced Phil Dick by naming their forthcoming Android phone Dream. But is it a replicate? We'll never know. And of course Google is crumbling because their search traffic grew. You heard that right. We'll explain that theory and attempt to debunk it on the show. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 685

comScore releases February 2008 U.S. search engine rankings http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2119

Google queries decelerated in February–comScore--Silicon Alley Insider http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/3/ google_comscore_says_queries_decelerated_in_february

Google data watch: Enough with the overanalysis http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8272… Read more

Microsoft's search numbers show need for Yahoo

The latest monthly market share numbers from Comscore show Microsoft still struggling just to tread water against Google.

While just a continuation of an existing trend, the market share figures highlight why Microsoft is so serious about buying Yahoo. It's not clear that Yahoo is the answer to all that ails Microsoft's online business, but it is the biggest option out there when it comes to boosting Microsoft's presence.

While Microsoft and Yahoo do well in areas like Web mail and instant messaging, it is search that pays nearly all the bills in the online world and … Read more