Originally published February 7 2006
Forrester Research reports low search engine loyalty
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Google is the search engine leader, but consumers have a great willingness to travel among search engines. Only 40 percent of online users say they are loyal to one of the four largest engines, while 49 percent say they use several.
Google leads among search engines, growing its market share to 41% of online searches from 31% two years ago -- but competition for users remains fierce among the top engines, and new, niche engines are joining the fray.
For that reason, marketers who depend on search marketing need to develop an understanding of how consumers use multiple engines, according to a new Forrester Research report, "Search loyalty is hard to find."
One indicator of consumers` willingness to travel among search engines is that the rise of a number of smaller engines has reduced the combined market share of online searches held by the top four engines -- Google, MSN, Yahoo and AOL Search -- to 83% in 2004 from 88% in 2003, according to report author, Forrester analyst Brian Haven.
While only 40% of online users say they are loyal to one of the four large search engines, 49% say they use multiple engines.
Most users say their primary search engine is effective at finding relevant search results or researching specific topics, but nearly half of all consumers find their primary search engine ineffective at finding people, local businesses or multimedia content, according to Forrester's findings.
Users rated Google most effective of the four at most information-related search tasks, while Yahoo and MSN were rated more effective in finding music or video content.
Instead, those marketers should turn to analytics tools to understand how consumers use multiple search engines, according to the research firm.
"This is increasingly important not only as consumer search activity deepens within the search engines into verticals like shopping and video, but also as it widens to include specialized vertical search engines," says Haven.
Forrester's results were drawn from more than 5,000 North American consumers it queried about their online search and portal behavior.
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