Top five search engines

Which do you consider to be the top five?

[duhboy]

Hello all
I am sure that this question has been asked in various forms many times.
I was asked this basic question by a client. I have my own ideas, but I would very much appreciate any input which I receive from this forum.
And of course there are many qualifiers which could be added, but I need to stick to this most basic question.
Thank you, everyone for your time, Duhboy,:)

[agerhart]

Google, Google, Google, Google.......kidding, although this is almost true.

1.) Google
2.) Yahoo
3.) MSN
4.) AOL
5.) AskJeeves/INK/Fast (could go either way depending on the site in question

[fathom]

Google obviously,

Yahoo and AOL currently on par

MSN a distance third with Ask Jeeves close behind.

In a general market -- I agree though with agerhart's list as the norm.

[Mohamed_E]

For me:

1. GOOGLE
   
2. Yahoo
   
3. MSN, now that INK is kindly spidering me for free.
   

You asked for top five, but after these three there is only noise on my site. In spite of using Google, which is very good to me, AOL is sending me very little visible traffic (caching, maybe?).

[caine]

From the logs.

Google. and regionals accounts for so much.
MSN / Yahoo, back and forth
AOL
Altavista <<<< This woke me up, nearly spilt my coffee !

[hutchins13]

According to onestat.com:

1. Google 55.1%
2. Yahoo 20.6%
3. MSN Search 9.4%
4. AOL Search 3.5%
5. Terra Lycos 3.0%
6. Altavista 2.4%
7. Ixquick 1.7%

Research is based on a sample of 2 million visitors divided into 20,000 visitors of 100 countries. (http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox12.html [onestat.com])

According to these numbers, Google has about 80% of the market (Google + Yahoo + AOL)... assuming most people only use the Google results at Yahoo. Very scary!

[mack]

When I checked over my logs I see.

Google
AOL
Yahoo
Altavista << agrees with Caine.

AV have gone from 10-20 referals a month to being right up there with the rest of them.

Does anyone have any idea of current AV traffic trends? My placement hasn't changed much over the past few months but my refferals sure have?

[brotherhood of LAN]

^{1 Google 8,763 46%
2 Yahoo 5,664 29.73%
3 AOL NetFind 1,805 9.47%
4 Microsoft Network 1,601 8.4%
5 Lycos 438 2.29%
6 AltaVista 281 1.47%
7 dogpile 275 1.44%}

Don't forget dogpile! ;)

Glad that MSN is there for me personally, otherwise its ggg...

[tigger]

>MSN is there for me personally, otherwise its ggg...

Yep in the same boat, but I'm noticing my MSN traffic falling, this is not due to loss of rankings if fact over the last few months I've picked up some good rankings from old ink, but I think more people are finding G, worrying!

[Giddion]

I have noticed a slight decline in MSN traffic lately.

But I have also noticed a large increase in Looksmart directory results and performance results popping up in MSN where a few months ago there wasn't for my specific keywords.

I think it’s best to always recommend my clients to submit to Looksmart. Inktomi results seem to get pushed further and further back.