In January 2024, Microsoft Sites handled 28.3 percent of all search queries in the United States. During the same period, Verizon Media (formerly known as Yahoo and Oath) had a search market share of little less than 11 percent. Market leader Google generated 60.4 percent of all core search queries in the United States.

In March 2024, Google accounted for 86.94 percent of the search market in the United States across all devices. Bing followed as the second leading search provider in the United States during the last examined month, with a share of around 8.04 percent, among the engine's highest quotas registered in the country to date.

We asked U.S. consumers about "Most used search engines by brand" and found that "Google" takes the top spot, while "Yandex" is at the other end of the ranking.These results are based on a representative online survey conducted in 2024 among 5,074 consumers in the United States.

Search engines, which collect, organize and display knowledge of the internet, are the backbone of the information age and have helped popularize the ad-supported attention economy that prevails throughout the internet. From 2019 to 2024, spending on internet advertising has maintained strong momentum as consumer demand for internet access continued to surge, driven by the adoption of LTE, 5G and unlimited mobile data plans. Despite COVID-19 depressing total advertising expenditure, digital advertising continued to grow as consumers practically lived online while stay-at-home orders were in place. As a result, search engine revenue from advertising is slated to mount at a CAGR of 10.4% to $287.5 billion, including an anticipated hike of 8.4% in 2024, with profit at 18.7%. The search engine industry is fundamentally differentiated from the rest of the economy by its advertising sales framework, market aggregation and high interconnection with other industries. While search is a consumer product, search revenue comes from a platform's desirability to advertisers, not users. Search platforms must balance providing the best search experience while integrating as many advertisements as possible. This difficult balance is challenging to achieve because advertising dollars tend to scale best on the leading search platform, increasing aggregation forces for search providers. The market leaders in search, Google and Microsoft, have met this balance by using advertising revenue to grow a suite of services designed to collect extensive behavior information on and off the search website. This data then targets ads to hyper-specific markets, funding the search business model. As the number of hours spent on the internet continues to mount, search engine revenue is poised to climb at a CAGR of 7.1% to $404.9 billion through the end of 2029. Advertisers will rely increasingly on search engine marketing due to its cost-effectiveness and efficiency advantages over traditional media. With proper analytics software installed, marketers can track which terms, advertisements and websites are the most effective, enabling incremental real-time tweaks and improvements in advertising campaigns. Artificial intelligence has promised to change the purpose of search from navigation to finding answers, which will change the structure of the internet, just as search engine providers have done many times before.

In March 2024, Google accounted for over 95 percent of the mobile search market in the United States. With approximately 59 percent reach among mobile audiences, Google Search is also one of the most popular mobile apps in the United States. DuckDuckGo and Yahoo! followed as the leading mobile search providers in the United States during the last examined month, with shares of around 1.84 percent and 1.54 percent each.

In January 2024, Verizon Media processed 2.52 million online search queries in the United States, and market leader Google processed over 14.2 million search queries. In total, Google accounted for 60 percent of the U.S. desktop search queries. Google was also the leading mobile search provider in the United States, accounting for around 95 percent of the market as of January 2024.

This statistic shows the market share of search engines in the United States in December 2008 to 2020. In December 2020, Verizon Media's search market share was 11.4 percent, down 0.1 percent from the previous year. The subsidiary was formed in 2017 by Verizon Communications as a merge between newly acquired Yahoo! and AOL.

United States Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: Mobile: Haosou data was reported at 0.010 % in 02 Oct 2024. This stayed constant from the previous number of 0.010 % for 01 Oct 2024. United States Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: Mobile: Haosou data is updated daily, averaging 0.010 % from Sep 2024 (Median) to 02 Oct 2024, with 22 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.020 % in 30 Sep 2024 and a record low of 0.010 % in 02 Oct 2024. United States Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: Mobile: Haosou data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statcounter Global Stats. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.SC.IU: Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share.

As of January 2025, online search engine Bing accounted for 12.23 percent of the global desktop search market, while market leader Google had a share of around 78.83 percent. Meanwhile, Yahoo's market share was 3.07 percent. Google in the global market Ever since the introduction of Google Search in 1997, the company has dominated the search engine market, while the shares of all other tools has been rather lopsided. The majority of Google revenues are generated through advertising. Its parent corporation, Alphabet, was one of the biggest internet companies worldwide as of 2023, with a market capitalization of 1,6 trillion U.S. dollars. The company has also expanded its services to mail, productivity tools, enterprise products, mobile devices, and other ventures. As a result, Google earned one of the highest tech company revenues in 2023 with roughly 305.6 billion U.S. dollars. Search engine usage in different countries Google is the most frequently used search engine worldwide. But in some countries, its’ alternatives are leading or competing with it to some extent. As of the last quarter of 2023, more than 63 percent of internet users in Russia used Yandex, whereas Google users were nearly 36 percent. Meanwhile, Baidu was the most used search engine in China, despite a strong percentage decrease of internet users in the country accessing it. In other countries, like Japan and Mexico, people tend to use Yahoo along with Google. In the first quarter of 2022 nearly 56 percent of the respondents in Japan said that they had used Yahoo in the past four weeks. In the same year, over 27 percent of users in Mexico said they used Yahoo. Another search engine, Bing, operated by Microsoft, was the second most popular search engine in the United Kingdom after Google.

This statistic illustrates the share of people who used a search engine in the United States in the past 4 weeks as of 2022. The results were sorted by age. In 2022, 96 percent of respondents aged 18 to 29 years stated they used a search engine in the past 4 weeks. The Statista Global Consumer Survey offers a global perspective on consumption and media usage, covering the offline und online world of the consumer.

United States Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: All Platforms: Haosou data was reported at 0.000 % in 03 Oct 2024. This records a decrease from the previous number of 0.010 % for 02 Oct 2024. United States Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: All Platforms: Haosou data is updated daily, averaging 0.020 % from Sep 2024 (Median) to 03 Oct 2024, with 28 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.030 % in 08 Sep 2024 and a record low of 0.000 % in 03 Oct 2024. United States Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: All Platforms: Haosou data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statcounter Global Stats. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.SC.IU: Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share.

United States Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: Gaming Console: Lilo data was reported at 0.000 % in 16 May 2024. This stayed constant from the previous number of 0.000 % for 15 May 2024. United States Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: Gaming Console: Lilo data is updated daily, averaging 0.000 % from May 2024 (Median) to 16 May 2024, with 9 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.040 % in 12 May 2024 and a record low of 0.000 % in 16 May 2024. United States Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: Gaming Console: Lilo data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statcounter Global Stats. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.SC.IU: Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share.

United States Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: Mobile: Sogou data was reported at 0.000 % in 03 Oct 2024. This records a decrease from the previous number of 0.010 % for 02 Oct 2024. United States Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: Mobile: Sogou data is updated daily, averaging 0.010 % from Sep 2024 (Median) to 03 Oct 2024, with 23 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.020 % in 30 Sep 2024 and a record low of 0.000 % in 03 Oct 2024. United States Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: Mobile: Sogou data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statcounter Global Stats. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.SC.IU: Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share.

According to a 2024 survey conducted in the United States, half of the responding adults stated they would trust AI-powered online search engines more if the content was verified by a human before being published. Around 40 percent of respondents indicated that more data privacy regulations would also increase their trust in such tools, while 35 percent mentioned that more personalization of search results was an important factor.

According to an April 2024 survey, 34 percent of adults in the United States preferred to use traditional search engines for online search. However, the use of social media usage for finding information online is growing as a trend, especially among younger generations. Approximately 18 percent of respondents used both methods for online searches depending on specific needs, while 48 percent of interviewees primarily used either social media or search engines for this task.

Recent research suggests that search volumes of the most popular search engine worldwide, Google, provided via Google Trends, could be associated with national suicide rates in the USA, UK, and some Asian countries. However, search volumes have mostly been studied in an ad hoc fashion, without controls for spurious associations. This study evaluated the validity and utility of Google Trends search volumes for behavioral forecasting of suicide rates in the USA, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Suicide-related search terms were systematically collected and respective Google Trends search volumes evaluated for availability. Time spans covered 2004 to 2010 (USA, Switzerland) and 2004 to 2012 (Germany, Austria). Temporal associations of search volumes and suicide rates were investigated with time-series analyses that rigorously controlled for spurious associations. The number and reliability of analyzable search volume data increased with country size. Search volumes showed various temporal associations with suicide rates. However, associations differed both across and within countries and mostly followed no discernable patterns. The total number of significant associations roughly matched the number of expected Type I errors. These results suggest that the validity of Google Trends search volumes for behavioral forecasting of national suicide rates is low. The utility and validity of search volumes for the forecasting of suicide rates depend on two key assumptions (“the population that conducts searches consists mostly of individuals with suicidal ideation”, “suicide-related search behavior is strongly linked with suicidal behavior”). We discuss strands of evidence that these two assumptions are likely not met. Implications for future research with Google Trends in the context of suicide research are also discussed.

According to a 2024 survey conducted in the United States, around 25 percent of respondents who used artificial intelligence-powered online search engines found search results provided by these tools more specific to their queries. Another 12 percent found their results more trustworthy. On the other hand, approximately 16 percent of respondents reported they would not trust AI-generated result to their web searches.

Based on a survey conducted in 2019 among internet users in the United States, the majority of adults (36 percent) admitted they would switch search engines if it meant getting better quality results. Furthermore, 33.7 percent stated that knowing their data was not being collected by a platform would also encourage them to make the switch. Other factors listed included 'having fewer ads' and a well designed interface. Overall, there was a noticeable lean toward search result quality and data privacy when it came to search engine selection.

Google leads despite user preference for increased privacy

Despite a strong consumer call for data protection, Google topped the list when it came to search engines with 93 percent of Americans surveyed reporting to having used the popular search giant at some point during the past 4 weeks. In comparison, the second most popular platform Yahoo! had only been used by 31 percent of those surveyed. Meanwhile DuckDuckGo, the search engine most known for protecting user data and search history had only been used by 8 percent. Mobile search figures lean even more in Google's favor. Here, a similar share (93 percent) of the market as of January 2021 belonged to Google, while approximately 3 percent was held by DuckDuckGo.

Growth expected for search advertising

With search engines playing a significant role in internet use be it on desktop or mobile, companies and search platforms alike are seeing an increased opportunity in the field of search engine advertising. Nationwide spend in the industry reached an impressive 58.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, and was forecast to further rise to 66.2 billion within the following year.

52 percent of U.S. respondents answer our survey on "Sources of information about products" with "Search engines (e.g., Google)". The survey was conducted in 2024, among 10,147 consumers.

A 2023 survey in the U.S. and UK revealed that search engines were the primary online platform for consumers to discover brands and products. Online marketplaces closely followed, with 47 percent of respondents using this channel. Social media was utilized by 43 percent of those surveyed, retail sites by 21 percent, brand websites by 19 percent, and delivery apps lagged with just 4 percent.