Online search usage - Statistics & Facts

Market leaders and newcomers: Just Google it?

As of September 2021, Google remains the leading search engine worldwide with a desktop market share of almost 87 percent. The California-based search giant has dominated the market for over a decade, consistently handling over 60 percent of all search queries in the United States. But while Google remains the top player, its online domination hasn’t extended everywhere: In Russia and China, for example, the service is overshadowed by domestic competitors Yandex and Baidu. Elsewhere, online users are increasingly choosing privacy- or sustainability-focused alternatives such as DuckDuckGo or Ecosia due to data collection and privacy concerns.

Online search behavior: Mobile-first

With mobile devices already accounting for over half of the global website traffic, it comes as no surprise that mobile searches also make up a significant part of search volumes worldwide. In the United States, around 60 percent of organic search engine visits are generated via smartphones and tablets, with Google claiming the largest market share among mobile search providers.

Advertising and marketing

Thanks to machine learning and programmatic advertising, search engines no longer present unbiased search results relating to user keywords, but they also display suitable ads to audiences in real-time. As many online users turn to search engines first when looking to make a purchase, companies are increasingly focusing their marketing efforts on these platforms and implementing search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to maximize sales and exposure on the results page. Across the world, paid search advertising spending is seeing rapid growth, which again translates into record advertising revenues for Google sites.

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