Metrics for top engines/directories

I cannot find a good source showing top search engines

[Rub]

I remember seeing lists a few years back that showed a ranking of popoularity for search engines and directories but I cant find anything current.

I tried Alexa, but find it hard to believe that MSN is more popular than Google...

[brotherhood of LAN]

The stastistics were posted here not too long ago, hopefully someone has them a click away via a flag/bookmark or whatnot.

From what I can remember of it...Google has just overtaken Yahoo for volume of searches (estimating it at around 36%) with Yahoo right behind.

Anyone confirm my memory? :)

[Marcia]

Rub, popularity can have a two-fold reason. Some sites are "popular" because they're portals that are the default start page for ISP users. The browsers are set like that as default and a lot of people keep it that way.

That's no indicator of usage as a search engine. MSN is an ISP with a portal/browser start page and they also get some by accident by people typing in wrong URLs unless they change the default. Most people don't even know how.

Google is not a portal, they are a pure and simple search engine, and for that they're clearly on top. Plus all their partner sites (including AOL) which might not reflect in some studies.

If it's traffic you want figures for, check the forums here, there have been a few threads where a lot of people shared their actual percentage figures,which is much more accurate.

[itrainu]

I have kept some snippets of info that I have come across. Hopefully this is what you are looking for:

Top Ten Search Engines/Directories (March 2001)
PositionSE's/Directory
1Yahoo.com
2MSN.com
3Lycos.com
4Netscape.com
5NBCI.com
6Excite.com
7About.com
8iwon.com
9AltaVista.com
10Google.com

(Media Metrix Jan 2002)
Position SE's/DirectoryMarket Share
1MSN.com 36.3
2Yahoo.com33.3
3Google.com 24
4AOL22.2
5Ask Jeeves45.9?
6Looksmart9.6
7Infospace9.4
8Overture9.2
9Netscape7.9
10AltaVista5.7

(April 17 2002) Onestat.com
PositionSE's/DirectoryMarket Share
1Google 46.5
2Yahoo.com20.6
3MSN7.8
4AltaVista6.4
5Terra Lycos4.6
6Ixquick (metasearch)2.4
7AOL1.6

Jupiter Media Metrix's ratings for March 2002
PositionSE's/DirectoryMarket Share
1MSN 37
2Yahoo.com34
3Google28.9
4AOL AltaVista22.4
5Ask Jeeves15.7
6Looksmart 9.2
7Infospace (Dogpile and MetaCrawler)8.9
8Netscape8.2
9Overture6.9

Media ratings for April 2002
PositionSE's/DirectoryUnique Visitors
1Google 34.2 Million
2Yahoo.com38.4
3MSN42.4

If this is too hard to read, sticky me and I will forward it in a word document!

itrainu

[Rub]

Thats great.. thank you