March Internet Search Market Share Redux

As March search stats were published by the other major third party measurement companies over the past few weeks I started to get a little worried about our post from a couple of weeks ago. So we decided to go a little deeper into our data and as a result we did an extensive page level look at our search counts. Low and behold, it turns out we got bitten again by the Club Live (MSFT) bug.

You would think that after the hubbub raised over Club Live last July we would have learned our lesson. Ever since that post last July we have been filtering out Club Live generated searches. It turns out that in February, MSN launched some new Club Live games that generated a solid amount of interest and skewed our March search market share report.

So here I am, a couple weeks later, after umpteen blogs have reposted our numbers and any number of bloggers have contrasted our results with the other third party measurement folks. I was hoping to get this out before Danny put together this great analysis, but alas it did not happen.

The new, updated, better than ever overview …

• Google (GOOG) market share increased 0.6ppts on 6% m-o-m volume growth reaching a new record market share
• Yahoo! (YHOO) continued the slide with market share dropping another ½ point to a new record low
• Windows Live Search market share inched up slightly as volume gains moved just slightly more than the market
• Ask also moved one step ahead of the market with market share inching forward
• AOL (TWX) was the only major engine to post a decline with volume off 4% m-o-m
• It’s still not easy being in the third party reporting game