Another Month And More Google Growth

Google accounted for 64 percent of all U.S. searches in the four weeks
ending March 31, 2007. That’s an increase from the year-ago figure of 58.33 percent, according to Hitwise market research.

Google’s next closet rival Yahoo took 21 percent, a decrease from 22 percent a year ago.

Hitwise general manager
of global research Bill Tancer said Google doesn’t appear to be slowing down.

“Despite capturing the majority of searches in the U.S., and in light
of competitor’s improvements, Google’s market share of executed
searches continues to grow, exceeding 10 percent growth year-over-year.”

The metric is an important one for Google, as it represents the increasing number of searchers exposed to, and who click on, the sponsored links that appear next to search results. And advertisers pay Google each time searchers click on those links.

The
nickels and dimes add up, too. For the fourth quarter ending Dec. 31, 2006, Google’s net profit was $1.03 billion, mostly
through search marketing.

But there’s word that Yahoo — one of the competitors Tancer describes
as improving — has begun to gain at least some ground on Google with
its own search-marketing system, code-named Panama.

Panama, which
underwent several delays before its final release on Feb. 5, is
supposed to help Yahoo make more money from its searchers by
judging the “quality” of ads submitted and placing next to search results the ones that are most likely to be clicked on most often.

All of this will shake out more clearly, as Google
and Yahoo prepare to report their first-quarter 2007 earnings next week.