Please learn how to read the Comscore qSearch report.
I guess its ok when media makes mistakes interpreting Comscore reports, they do not deal with numbers much, but its painful to see financial analysts making the same mistakes.
The search share that is relevant for revenue is not the Comscore total media reported qSearch share which includes all types of search like image, video, directory, groups, etc. These ancillary verticals do not contribute to revenue (not directly), hence they can double marketshare in those areas and still make no additional revenue for that quarter.
Also that specific report had a ton of methodology changes over the last year, so year-over-year comparisons are totally out of whack. For example, Comscore had a technical issue with how they count Google image search PVs which they corrected in Jan 06, that led to inflating Google’s growth in Jan and Feb compared to last year.
That said, the proper metric to look at is the Web Search PVs marketshare, and specifically within the top 5 players (Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and ASK), since Comscore added a new bunch of ISP search portals to their total report in Jan 06.
Cheers,
– amr
PS: Bearn Stearns, you also had a typo in the table on page 2 of your report, the column headers for the last two columns should read Jan 06 and Feb 06 (instead of Jan 05 and Feb 05).
“specific report had a ton of methodology changes over the last year, so year-over-year comparisons are totally out of whack. ”
but what about the month-to-month comparison from Jan-Feb 2006? that says something,
doesn’t it? (at least to me it does)
and i agree w/u that it means little to relavent revenue gain, but it sure looks
good to Google’s customers. (i would feel more confident about my AD being on their
network.)
Also, if I may ask, what was the moral like at yahoo search after your CFO said
Comment by Joe — March 30, 2006 @ 6:13 amYahoo!’s goal was not to be # 1 at search? (You seem like a Type A person, and I
can only imagine it would of annoyed you and a lot of people there… I would of
been, knowing one of my generals doesn’t want to win the war.)
Dear Joe,
Why would more video search pages make you “feel more comfident about
your ad being on their network” when they do not show any ads on
those pages ? Indeed, Video Search is one of the largest contributors
to their overall media reported share (its rolls up into that).
Regarding the comment by Sue Decker (our CFO), that was a slip of tong
that was taken completely out of context. She meant to say that this year
we are focusing on fixing our products rather than paying Dell
a shitload of money to put the toolbar on every new laptop they sell.
I am referring to this:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2006-02-07-google-dell_x.htm?POE=TECISVA
and for your information, it is insane spending like this ($10/machine)
that is causing google to gain a little bit of marketshare in the
US Web Search space. If Google’s web search product was truly exceptional
they would not have needed to resolve to exuberant distribution deals like
this. To put this $10/machine in perspective, the Google Firefox Toolbar
distribution deal which is part of the adsense program only pays $1/install,
this Dell deal is 10x that amount and definitely at a loss for them, you
will see soon.
– amr
Comment by amr — March 30, 2006 @ 12:53 pmAmr - Thanks for the education on ComScore, and for clarification of Sue’s comment. Given what you have said, 1) How do you, Amr, determine share movements (is it with ComScore or Nielson, or something internal), 2) what do you see is happening in share, and 3) what do you think is realistic for Yahoo in terms of share over the next year, in the US and worldwide.
Comment by Andy — March 30, 2006 @ 4:21 pmAny comments on Nielsen//NetRatings report? Thanks,
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-30-2006/0004330469&EDATE=
Comment by mike — March 31, 2006 @ 1:57 pmAsk.com, even with only 6% market share at the moment, has done a great job within a short time and may gain momentum in the near future:
http://www.internetoutsider.com/
As far as search results go, I think most of the top search engines are currently more or less comparable; what Google has that others don’t is more of a hype/perception/habit nature. Therefore, whatever edge one can add to search capabilities (like Ask.com did) may go a long way to enhance users’ perception of a search engine’s capability.
And I think perception and habit are extremely important to gain/maintain market share. Even if others catch up, or even exceed Google’s search engine performance, it’s not necessary that users will switch service, unless their search performance is vastly superior to Google’s, or they provide some compelling features that Google doesn’t have. And even if these are the cases, users still have to be convinced through various means (advertising/marketing, test and actual usage) that a certain search engine is better than Google’s, because as of now, Google is virtually synonymous to search.
I have a Yahoo mail account and use Yahoo’s IM. I didn’t bother to switch to Google’s Gmail or Google Talk since they don’t provide any compelling features for me to switch. I did switch to Windows Messenger (since most of my friends use it), and Google has been the main search engine I’ve used for a long time. Indeed, it used to be superior to others, including Yahoo’s.
Lately, even though I don’t think it’s significantly better than Yahoo or MSN (if at all), I still use it out of habit until recently, when I ditched it out of their despisable hypocrisy and go back to Yahoo/MSN.
However, with ask.com’s revamped search, I’ll give it a try for a while, and so far, I really like it. It does have a few new compelling features that other search engines currently don’t.
Comment by anon — March 31, 2006 @ 3:15 pmAndy,
(1) we use many sources, not just one, and none of them agree with the others
(2) Can’t say in exact terms, but if you have the comscore subscription,
then narrow down to web search only, and only among G, Y, M, AOL,
and ASK. Google gained a tiny bit, not as much as media hype right now.
(3) Yahoo is not spending as much (or should I say as crazy) on distribution
deals like Google is. Also Yahoo does not have the same monopolistic
muscle that MSN has with IE7 and Vista. So, as Sue said, we do not
expect to gain much marketshare this year, but we do not expect to
lose much either. That said, Yahoo is working on many new product
enhancements that might surprise.
– amr
Comment by amr — March 31, 2006 @ 7:01 pmAmr, You repeatedly claim that Y! is not spending much..let me ask you this: How much shitload of money did yahoo offer SBC for the DSL partnership? The DSL software installs all crap viz Y! messenger, toolbar and what not by default.
Comment by Harry — April 1, 2006 @ 1:20 amHarry, for that deal specifically, SBC is paying us
– amr
Comment by amr — April 4, 2006 @ 8:54 pmAmr, which do you find more relevant or reliable - Alexa or ComScore?
Comment by FlyGuy2000 — April 10, 2006 @ 7:46 pmAmr, also what do you think about GOOG earnings for 1Q06? You were correct on the 4Q05 miss, so wondering what you are thinking about now.
Comment by FlyGuy2000 — April 10, 2006 @ 8:00 pm