Could Google be losing its dominating share of the UK search market? The latest data from Experian Hitwise would suggest this, as it revealed that Google’s share of the UK search market in October had fallen below 90% for the first time in five years.
The internet tracking company announced that Google had dipped to an 89.33% share of the search engine market in October, while Bing, Ask and Yahoo upped their shares.
However this latest data is unlikely to worry the search engine giant too much, as searches are only down by 1.41%. In fact, Google still receives eighteen times as many searches on its sites than all other search engines combined.
But the news is particularly encouraging for Microsoft, who have struggled with getting Bing off the ground for years. Despite relentless advertising and celebrity endorsement, Bing has failed to make a mark on Google’s market dominance.
Finally though, Microsoft’s search engine is gaining more momentum and now holds 5% of the market share. Part of this rise in Bing’s popularity could be attributed to their aggressive promotional tactics as well as the Microsoft 8 operating system being installed with Bing as default rather than Google.
The news does suggest that more attention should be paid to alternative search engines. While Google vastly holds the majority share of searches, it is also worth exploring optimisation for Bing as well as Google. By investing in Bing early, you can allow yourself to generate extra exposure before market rivals and showcase your business to a largely unexplored market.
Overall however, the best thing you can do for your business’ website and to optimise for any search engine is ensure it ranks as naturally as possible, with strong original content and natural linking. Content marketing is one way of achieving this and is now becoming an essential part of any business to attract new customers and build a reputation for brand name.
For now, however, Google remains the dominating search engine and looks to continue its hold for some time.
