With 1,326,920,000 Web pages in its searchable index, Mountain View-based search engine Google placed first overall in a recent study by NPD Online Research.

The marketing information company quarterly ranks search and portal sites based on relevant results and user satisfaction criteria. The latest study, which gathered data from 19,357 Internet users, measured consumer opinions and loyalty with 18 of the most popular search services, including AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, AOL.com and Yahoo! (which uses Google's service to power its own engine).

Google users awarded the portal the highest ratings in seven out of nine relevancy and user satisfaction categories, with 92% of profiled users identifying Google as being "much" or "somewhat" better than any other search site, and 96% of its users finding what they are searching for "all or most of the time" when using the service.

This is the fourth consecutive quarter Google has garnered the #1 ranking.

"We attribute much of our phenomenal growth to the large number of users who are recommending Google to others," says Sergey Brin, president and co-founder of Google. "95 % of our users [in the study] indicated that they would recommend Google to a friend."

The Top Google Categories From NPD:

• No. 1 in Comparison vs. Other Search Sites.
• No. 1 for Relevant and Accurate Search Results.
• No. 1 for Meeting the Needs of Users.
• No. 1 for Ease-of-Use and Navigation.
• No. 1 for Site Reliability.
• No. 1 for Speed in Loading.
• No. 1 for Up-to-Date Information.
• No. 1 for Good Value for the Time Spent.

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