Comscore Releases May 2011 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

RESTON, VA, June 10, 2011 – 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 May with 65.5 percent of search queries conducted.

The May 2011 qSearch data represents the second month of results including the impact of Yahoo! Search Direct, Yahoo!’s new feature that delivers search results in real-time while users type their query.

U.S. Explicit Core Search

Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in May with 65.5 percent market share (up 0.1 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 15.9 percent and Microsoft Sites with 14.1 percent. Ask Network accounted for 2.9 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.5 percent.

Comscore Explicit Core Search Share Report*
May 2011 vs. April 2011
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Explicit Core Search Share (%)

Apr-11

May-11

Point Change

Total Explicit Core Search

100.0%

100.0%

N/A

Google Sites

65.4%

65.5%

0.1

Yahoo! Sites

15.9%

15.9%

0.0

Microsoft Sites

14.1%

14.1%

0.0

Ask Network

3.0%

2.9%

-0.1

AOL, Inc.

1.5%

1.5%

0.0

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

More than 17.0 billion explicit core searches were conducted in May (up 5 percent versus April). Google Sites ranked first with 11.2 billion searches (up 5 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.7 billion (up 5 percent), Microsoft Sites with 2.4 billion (up 4 percent), Ask Network with 502 million (up 2 percent) and AOL, Inc. with 254 million (up 2 percent).

Comscore Explicit Core Search Query Report
May 2011 vs. April 2011
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)

Apr-11

May-11

Percent Change

Total Explicit Core Search

16,277

17,024

5%

Google Sites

10,652

11,155

5%

Yahoo! Sites

2,584

2,711

5%

Microsoft Sites

2,301

2,402

4%

Ask Network

491

502

2%

AOL, Inc.

248

254

2%

U.S. Total Core Search

Google Sites accounted for 63.3 percent of total core search queries conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 19.6 percent (up 1.7 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 13.1 percent. Ask Network comprised 2.6 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.3 percent.

Comscore Total Core Search Share Report*
May 2011 vs. April 2011
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Total Core Search Share (%)

Apr-11

May-11

Point Change

Total Core Search

100.0%

100.0%

N/A

Google Sites

64.2%

63.3%

-0.9

Yahoo! Sites

17.9%

19.6%

1.7

Microsoft Sites

13.8%

13.1%

-0.7

Ask Network

2.7%

2.6%

-0.1

AOL, Inc.

1.4%

1.3%

-0.1

* “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 19.3 billion total core search queries in May (up 7 percent). Google Sites ranked first with 12.2 billion searches (up 5 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.8 billion (up 17 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 2.5 billion (up 1 percent).

Comscore Total Core Search Query Report
May 2011 vs. April 2011
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: Comscore qSearch

Core Search Entity

Total Core Search Queries (MM)

Apr-11

May-11

Percent Change

Total Core Search

18,089

19,269

7%

Google Sites

11,609

12,204

5%

Yahoo! Sites

3,239

3,786

17%

Microsoft Sites

2,501

2,522

1%

Ask Network

491

502

2%

AOL, Inc.

248

254

2%

“Powered By” Reporting

As a part of Comscore’s commitment to accurately represent the continued evolution of the search landscape, Comscore is providing insight into the share of organic Core Explicit searches that are powered by Google and Bing.

In May, 67.8 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google, which is flat month over month. 26.5 percent of searches were powered by Bing, which is also flat month over month.

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