#Did Google really lose search market share to Microsoft Bing in April?
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Google has lost search market share in the U.S., North America, globally and elsewhere. Meanwhile Bing and Yahoo grew. Is the data accurate?
By the numbers. Google’s U.S. search market share in the U.S. fell to 77.52% in April, down from 86.94% in March and down from 88.8% in April 2023. Meanwhile:
- Microsoft Bing grew to 13.05% in April, up from 8.04% in March.
- Yahoo (!) grew to 7.3%, up from 2.48% in March.
See why I’m skeptical yet? How are Microsoft Bing and Yahoo growing that much in one month?
But wait, there’s more.
Google’s global search engine market share dropped from 91.38% in March to 86.99% in April. Meanwhile:
- Microsoft Bing grew to 5.8% in April, up from 3.35% in March.
- Yahoo grew to 3.06% in April, up from 1.1% in March.
There are other unexplainable swings – some bigger than others – found in other regions as well, based on Statcounter’s data.
But. Before you start cheering, the data seems suspect. Some are expecting Statcounter to “correct” these figures because these sorts of big swings seem impossible and unprecedented.
Why we care. My first thought after seeing these numbers was: they seem wrong. User behavior doesn’t change this rapidly. While SEOs and others have been heavily critical of Google over the past few years, often with good reason, I’ve never seen market share figures swing like this in one month unless there was a change to how the data was collected or there is some sort of issue with the data.
What Statcounter is saying. Nothing yet, but I’ve emailed the company to get some insight into whether these numbers are accurate.
Danny Goodwin has been Managing Editor of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo – SMX since 2022. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as Senior Editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land’s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program. He also helps program U.S. SMX events.
Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He previously was Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managing editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016) and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.
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