So Google’s search rivals are either gaining share (according to Hitwise), or looking flat (with Yahoo declining slightly) (according to comScore), or… if insider scuttlebutt is to be believed, experiencing business results that are “falling off a cliff“.
There’s a chance these claims can all be true at once, but it’s a slim chance.
As always, website owners think of the real numbers in terms of the search referrals they’re experiencing to their own site.
And paid search marketers find that their capacity to generate paid search impressions, clicks, and conversions pretty much tell them all they need to know.
It doesn’t ring true that the “Bing-Yahoo alliance” has a functional 30.01% search share, in the same way that Google has 64.42%.
If that was really the case, and Yahoo truly has a robust and seemingly stable 15+% search share, why would Yahoo be so subservient to Microsoft? So frightened of the future? In short, why is everything so bad at Yahoo when those numbers say things should be pretty good?
And if those numbers really are that robust (not even counting their larger display advertising side), and Yahoo has a big enough ad-supported, automated, regime to generate healthy revenues… should we really credit management moves for the future profitability that this would entail? At these volumes, it really should be like making money in your sleep. Less money than Google, to be sure. But that goes for everyone.