Google now #4 in US

according to reports on Media metrix

[chiyo]

Press reports are picking up on MEdia Metrix's new ratings which have Google as #4 after AOL, Microsoft and Y!

This is an amazing accomplishment for a home page which has one big graphic and fits in one window which is neither a portal or a default home page, and only a few years old.

Who would have thought that Google would pull this off when it first started on our screens having metamophosized from BackRub. I remember recommending it as a "new search engine that produces very relevant results for research" back then when all the talk was about Y! and AV. I never thought it would be as big as this, but it shows how much people need Search, and how much they needed a site that was solely dedicated to it, resulting in giving people what they want.

[The_Warden]

It doesn't surprise me one bit. Ever since they've started Google has been kicking butt. It's amazing how great they are doing considering most of what they have done is simple look and simple operation. Simplicity is working very well for them. Only thing left for me is to get my hands on some of the Google merchandise :).

[kabanossen]

They are bound to end up nr 1 within two years. I've been following the Media Metrix stats and the Netratings stats for Google for three years now and they have climbed the charts every single month.

[kch333]

if you calculate it by worldwide, aol would be behind of google, so google sure to be #3 or #2( I don't beleive ms so high), but ....chinese cannot use google anymore. wuuwuuwuuwuwwuuwuuuuwuw...

kch333

[julinho]

Hi, everyone.

I´ve been lurking and learning for a while, decided to start posting. Excellent board, my respectful compliments to the admins and posters.

Google behing AOL, msn and Y!? Are you sure that this ranking doesn´t count ALL the hits to those sites, and not only the SE hits?
Google doesn´t have free mail, clubs, messengers, etc; I would say that, as far as searching is concerned, google is already the #1.

Does anybody know any chart comparing SE hits only?

[martinibuster]

That's interesting because Google was formerly #3 in March 2002 (behind msn and yahoo)

It would be interesting to know how they arrive at these numbers which, for my purposes, are irrelevant because I don't buy advertising.

[chiyo]

yes, it counts ALL hits. That Google is the #1 Search Property is beyond question. That they are #4 behind the 3 major portals that have ISP default pagea, and mass services hits (email, messengers, games etc) is the significant achievement that I am talking about.

[martinibuster]

What I find interesting is that Google slipped from #3 to 4, and that the ailing AOL rose from 5 to 3. It's actually bad news for google.

Their methodology isn't really counting hits, but rather tracking a group of users then randomly surveying 1000 users. I don't know but the above numbers seem extreme.

[Beachboy]

Very interesting find. Hmmmm. I think almost everyone on the web needs to do a search, therefore as time goes by everyone uses (or will soon use) Google to do the searching. Not everyone needs to visit Microsoft, and I wonder if those "visits" are to a great degree MS products phoning home for update patches. The only people who visit AOL are AOL members. Yahoo is a biggie, but if search is a major component of the motivation to go there, that will lessen over time. I see Google as Number One eventually.

[martinibuster]

This rating is limited to what page a user is landing on. It doesn't consider if the user is accessing google on that page, and rightly so, because the scope of the survey has been limited because it is aimed at and of use to advertisers and not webmasters.

Our log files tell a different story. To us, this rating is pretty much meaningless because we don't care if a surfer finds us through google in Yahoo or AOL, it's by and large the same thing.

[WebGuerrilla]

>>It would be interesting to know how they arrive at these numbers which, for my purposes, are irrelevant because I don't buy advertising

From the ComScore Press Release:

Top 50 Digital Media & Web Properties: The Top 50 Digital Media & Web properties are based on unduplicated audience reach, also known as unique visitors.

It also goes on to explain that web properties means a combined total of visitors across all sites owned and operated by a common company.

So, based on that, they are saying that if you add up all the unique visitors from all Google owned properties, (which would include all the country specific versions) they come in a very distant fourth. (Yahoo at number 3 has more than twice as many uniques per month)

Still, when you consider that all they do is search, they are pretty impressive numbers. It doesn't seem too unrealistic to think that Google would easily overtake the top three if/when they begin to introduce similar sticky portal-type features.