Comscore Releases January 2012 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

RESTON, VA, February 9, 2012 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly Comscore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace. Google Sites led the explicit core search market in January with 66.2 percent of search queries conducted.

U.S. Explicit Core Search

Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in January with 66.2 percent market share (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Microsoft Sites with 15.2 percent (up 0.1 percentage points) and Yahoo! Sites with 14.1 percent. Ask Network accounted for 3.0 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.6 percent.

Comscore Explicit Core Search Share Report*
January 2012 vs. December 2011
Total U.S. – Home & Work Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Explicit Core Search Share (%)

Dec-11

Jan-12

Point Change

Total Explicit Core Search

100.0%

100.0%

N/A

Google Sites

65.9%

66.2%

0.3

Microsoft Sites

15.1%

15.2%

0.1

Yahoo! Sites

14.5%

14.1%

-0.4

Ask Network

2.9%

3.0%

0.1

AOL, Inc.

1.6%

1.6%

0.0

*“Explicit Core Search” excludes contextually driven searches that do not
reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.

17.8 billion explicit core searches were conducted in January, with Google Sites ranking first with 11.8 billion. Microsoft Sites ranked second with 2.7 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.5 billion, Ask Network with 527 million and AOL, Inc. with 277 million.

Comscore Explicit Core Search Query Report
January 2012 vs. December 2011
Total U.S. – Home & Work Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)

Dec-11

Jan-12

Percent Change

Total Explicit Core Search

18,235

17,804

-2%

Google Sites

12,019

11,786

-2%

Microsoft Sites

2,750

2,707

-2%

Yahoo! Sites

2,647

2,506

-5%

Ask Network

531

527

-1%

AOL, Inc.

287

277

-3%

U.S. Total Core Search

Google Sites accounted for 66.2 percent of total core search queries conducted (up 0.1 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.0 percent and Microsoft Sites with 13.8 percent. Ask Network comprised 2.6 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.4 percent.

Comscore Total Core Search Share Report*
January 2012 vs. December 2011
Total U.S. – Home & Work Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Total Core Search Share (%)

Dec-11

Jan-12

Point Change

Total Core Search

100.0%

100.0%

N/A

Google Sites

66.1%

66.2%

0.1

Yahoo! Sites

16.2%

16.0%

-0.2

Microsoft Sites

13.8%

13.8%

0.0

Ask Network

2.6%

2.6%

0.0

AOL, Inc.

1.4%

1.4%

0.0

* “Total Core Search” is based on the five major search engines, including
partner searches, cross-channel searches and contextual searches. Searches
for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the
core domain of the five search engines are not included in these numbers.

Americans conducted nearly 20 billion total core search queries in January. Google Sites ranked first with 13.2 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.2 billion and Microsoft Sites with 2.8 billion.

Comscore Total Core Search Query Report
January 2012 vs. December 2011
Total U.S. – Home & Work Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Total Core Search Queries (MM)

Dec-11

Jan-12

Percent Change

Total Core Search

20,525

19,975

-3%

Google Sites

13,560

13,218

-3%

Yahoo! Sites

3,318

3,191

-4%

Microsoft Sites

2,829

2,761

-2%

Ask Network

531

527

-1%

AOL, Inc.

287

277

-3%

“Powered By” Reporting

In January, 68.4 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google (vs. 68.1 percent in December) while 26.5 percent of searches were powered by Bing (no change vs. December).

About Comscore
Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Contact:
Adam Lella
Comscore, Inc.
+1 (312) 775-6474
press@comscore.com