Jump to content

Microsoft eclipses Yahoo in U.S. search


JEast

Recommended Posts

Then you see Yang and Bostock doing everything they can to prevent Yahoo! from being bought out by someone who could right size the company and sell the Asian assets which are around 80% of its value. What they will likely do instead is sell a portion of the Asian assets and then buyout some overpriced web business. Probably among the worst managers in the world.

 

Cardboard

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Then you see Yang and Bostock doing everything they can to prevent Yahoo! from being bought out by someone who could right size the company and sell the Asian assets which are around 80% of its value. What they will likely do instead is sell a portion of the Asian assets and then buyout some overpriced web business. Probably among the worst managers in the world.

 

Cardboard

 

Fortunately for Yahoo! shareholders (myself included), the 33.33% of the "cash-rich transaction" price must be applied toward an operating asset, so the inevitable overpriced acquisition won't come out of cash available for a special dividend and/or buyback. If we can get Loeb on the board to inject some sense of financial engineering, Yahoo! could lever up 2x EBITDA of approximately $1.2B, and buyback over 10% of shares out at $18 per share - this doesn't even take into account the cash received from the CRT. I think the jig is up with these guys, and Loeb will receive full support. Obviously I'm biased....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not a game changer, but Bing moved into a 15.1% share of the U.S. search traffic moving past Yahoo's 14.5% share of the U.S. market.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-01-11/microsoft-yahoo-search/52505430/1

 

 

Yahoo search is powered by Bing, btw.

 

Yahoo's share of search is probably more valuable, though, because people actually have to go there and want to search -- it's not a typo-catching default in browsers and such.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yahoo's share of search is probably more valuable, though, because people actually have to go there and want to search -- it's not a typo-catching default in browsers and such.

 

Not this theory again...  ;)

 

It doesn't make sense.  Look at the browser share of IE:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Usage_share_of_web_browsers_%28Source_StatCounter%29.svg

 

Now look at the search share of Bing:

http://static8.businessinsider.com/image/4f0e050e69bedd0b1900000f/chart-of-the-day-sai-share-of-core-searches-us-jan-11-2012.jpg

 

If a meaningful chunk of the Bing search share were due to typos captured and processed by the default search engine, how come the search share doesn't drop in line with IE's market share?

 

But this argument does bring up a vexing question..

 

Can anyone explain why Bing and Yahoo's search share is roughly stable in aggregate while the share of default-to-Bing browsers has been dropping like a rock?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest valueInv

Not a game changer, but Bing moved into a 15.1% share of the U.S. search traffic moving past Yahoo's 14.5% share of the U.S. market.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-01-11/microsoft-yahoo-search/52505430/1

 

 

Yahoo search is powered by Bing, btw.

 

Yahoo's share of search is probably more valuable, though, because people actually have to go there and want to search -- it's not a typo-catching default in browsers and such.

 

Google's Chrome (typo-catching default) marketshare is increasing while its search marketshare is not increasing. It is likely that more Google searches are coming from Chrome typos. Should we conclude that Google's share of search value is actually decreasing?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not the only variable here, so of course you won't see a direct relationship between the two. But that fact that Yahoo gets none of it while both Google and Bing get some is notable.

 

And as I explained in the past, Bing is a smaller player but has the biggest browser. Google is a much bigger player with a smaller browser (growing, but still relatively small). The impact of a big browser on a small player will be relatively much bigger than of a small browser on a big player. Simple bayesian math, afaict.

 

Another interesting to note is that I think Google's market share isn't climbing with Chrome because if you are savvy enough to install a third party browser, chances are you are already a google user. Google's main benefits from Chrome as pushing forward the development of the web (they've had great success there, with everyone pushing javascript performance to match Chrome's V8 engine, allowing all kinds of new web-apps to exist) and keeping it as open and standards' compliant as possible. Same reason why they have helped Mozilla/Firefox for a long time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1)  more attractive page

 

And I'm sure that was their thinking with the nice images.

 

Perosnally, when searching I care more about content than form, though.

 

2)  Shorter name to type as I use the address bar

 

I find that a bit strange. With auto-fill, dedicated search fields, homepage settings that can be set to whatever you want, and the smart URL bars of all modern browsers, who ever actually types a search engine's address manually anymore? You could save yourself that trouble very easily.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find that a bit strange. With auto-fill, dedicated search fields, homepage settings that can be set to whatever you want, and the smart URL bars of all modern browsers, who ever actually types a search engine's address manually anymore? You could save yourself that trouble very easily.

 

I just have an old habit from when NCSA Mosaic was my browser.  You know, the free browser that Netscape copied and then tried to charge for?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1)  more attractive page

 

And I'm sure that was their thinking with the nice images.

 

Perosnally, when searching I care more about content than form, though.

 

I'm not one of the people who thinks the search results of one is better than the other.

 

So it's sort of like an elevator -- they both take me to the same destination but I prefer the one with nice pictures on the walls.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Old habits die hard, I guess. I think my first browser was Netscape Navigator 3.04, and before that I was on local BBSes with my U.S. Robotics 24000/9600 bauds modem.. Heh

 

I guess the importance of the quality of the results depend on what you search. I spend my days doing research for a living, and then some more when I'm not working, so I guess I'm what you would call a power user.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I prefer Bing for a couple of reasons:

 

1)  more attractive page

2)  Shorter name to type as I use the address bar

 

I like Bing too, but one thing Google search offers is the ability to sort search results by date (e.g. most recent first).  How is it that Bing cannot offer something so apparently simple?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest valueInv

It's not the only variable here, so of course you won't see a direct relationship between the two. But that fact that Yahoo gets none of it while both Google and Bing get some is notable.

 

And as I explained in the past, Bing is a smaller player but has the biggest browser. Google is a much bigger player with a smaller browser (growing, but still relatively small). The impact of a big browser on a small player will be relatively much bigger than of a small browser on a big player. Simple bayesian math, afaict.

 

Another interesting to note is that I think Google's market share isn't climbing with Chrome because if you are savvy enough to install a third party browser, chances are you are already a google user. Google's main benefits from Chrome as pushing forward the development of the web (they've had great success there, with everyone pushing javascript performance to match Chrome's V8 engine, allowing all kinds of new web-apps to exist) and keeping it as open and standards' compliant as possible. Same reason why they have helped Mozilla/Firefox for a long time.

I am not talking about the relative effects but rather the trend. We're talking typos here, it doesn't matter if you were already a Google user savvy enough to install Chrome, everyone makes typos. Further, Google has the smart address bar which redirects aggressively to Google, while IE didn't have that feature until IE 9 afaik. So the redirect effect should be more in Chrome, actually. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest valueInv

1)  more attractive page

 

And I'm sure that was their thinking with the nice images.

 

Perosnally, when searching I care more about content than form, though.

 

I'm not one of the people who thinks the search results of one is better than the other.

 

So it's sort of like an elevator -- they both take me to the same destination but I prefer the one with nice pictures on the walls.

I haven't found much differences in the results either. There are some areas where Google has better results (technical stuff) and there are others where Bing shines. Overall, I found both to be about equal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not the only variable here, so of course you won't see a direct relationship between the two. But that fact that Yahoo gets none of it while both Google and Bing get some is notable.

I don't think that it's notable unless we can get some concrete numbers on how prevalent this typo phenomenon is.  Based on what I see with respect to the data, it's an insignificant factor.

 

And as I explained in the past, Bing is a smaller player but has the biggest browser. Google is a much bigger player with a smaller browser (growing, but still relatively small). The impact of a big browser on a small player will be relatively much bigger than of a small browser on a big player. Simple bayesian math, afaict.

 

You're saying that the impact should be more visible with Bing, but as I showed with the graphs, it's not visible at all.  IE's browser share was huge and is getting smaller.  You should expect a decrease in search share in line with that if default search (and default search typo correction) were a significant factor.  Bayesian amplification should make the effect of dropping default search share more pronounced, not less so.

 

Also, Google's default search share isn't relatively small.  It's relatively big.  They own default search for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and mobile, which collectively make up about 55% of the browser market, which is greater than IE's 40%.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest misterstockwell

I use Bing--much better results. Google leads to endless third party sites trying to sell you something or get a worthless hit. Way too much of that in Google results. I've tried all browsers, all search engines, and I am back at IE9 and Bing--least hassle, best performance, no worries. I also much prefer the angled birds eye view on Bing maps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...