Yahoo Beats Google for Time Online Hands down

[Brett_Tabke]

Compete [blog.compete.com].com chart shows time spent online. (compete has a toolbar and aggregates data from Alexa, Comscore, Hitwise, and Netratings)

Only 20 domains capture a whopping 39% of all our time spent online.
Only 2.1% of our time is spent on Google.com (GOOG) (includes all sub-domains).
MySpace (NWS) (#1) is miles ahead of Yahoo! (#2), however Yahoo! impresses. Yahoo holds a significant lead over Google+YouTube.com, Microsoft's (MSFT) MSN+Live.com and AOL+AIM.com.

[defanjos]

Well, that makes sense. Yahoo is mostly a portal, while Google is a search engine.
If it was the other way around, Google should be worried.
Think about. People find what they are looking for fast on Google and leave, either by clicking on the regular results or Adwords - both good for Google.
Google does not want people hanging around, not on the SE anyway.

[sem4u]

Not many surprises in that list apart from maybe bankofamerica and erm adultfriendfinder...

[StupidScript]

Not at all surprising, but not because of the relative values of the sites. Rather we are seeing the results of strategic placement within a default operating system setup.

Yahoo toolbar is installed by default in Windows XP Media Center Edition, and in other XP distros. Not to mention regular prodding to install it by companies like Adobe. As long as the user has not uninstalled the toolbar and has their web browser open, they are 'spending time' on Yahoo. Unless the numbers are adjusted to account for toolbar behavior, including Google's, it's hard to give them weight.

I still prefer to get my numbers from HitWise (which is not, apparently, a contributor to Compete.com's data sources.) Compete's primary data source is, in fact, their toolbar, with a few additional resources being provided on an ad hoc basis.

[weeks]

Thanks for this info. This is a great illustration why newspapers (and most everyone else wanting to be a local portal) are going to struggle in making a dent in online ads. Yahoo is the only news site on the list and we really don't know how much traffic they get because of news.

[carguy84]

Umm, how can any list be considered accurate when neopets.com makes it?

[sem4u]

I guess kids spend a long time on there...I wouldn't have a clue about the site myself!

[matimer]

If it counted how often a user was in front of a google ad... i bet google would win (if you count the 900 lb Adsense guerilla sitting in the room)

[Brett_Tabke]

you can read where the numbers come from:
[blog.compete.com...]

>neopets

Is huge among kids. They get into those games and just camp for hours. It's a baby sitter for many after school hours. parents are nuts about that thing.

[centime]

Actually, the majority of homepages i see, on the computers of none techie people, is Yahoo, then MSn, and hardly any google default homepages,

infact any time i see a google homepage, tis always a student, or techie

i guess people just like portals, tis a bit like having the telly on

[moTi]

offtopic: you wonder why the neopets.com website is so narrow?

click on the "results" tab on the survey on the right.

what`s your screen resoluton?
800x600 wins by far with 580013 votes (45%).

what the heck..? can anyone explain? maybe kids voting with no clue and neopets comply with the vote?

[steveb]

When Google launches games.google.com then they could be talked about in the same context as yahoo, but its obviously no comparison now.

[spinnercee]

The search feature on MySpace is Google "powered", so...

[flummox]

Anyway good news for Yahoo. They could use this data to raise the advertisement fees for suitable advertisers who want to promote the brand images.

[ALbino]

I use Google for all of my searches, but when you take into account things like Fantasy Sports, etc, I probably spend more time on Yahoo. Yahoo is terrible for searching, but all their other features make them user friendly. Also, don't discount the age and stability of their @yahoo.com e-mail accounts. People have had them since the 90's and probably don't want to switch any time soon.

[Chris_Boggs]

I probably spend a combined hour+/day on Yahoo between my email and all the fantasy sports teams that I manage, so this is not a surprise to me.

What I wonder, alluding to what StupidScripts was saying, is if "dead time" where I may have a browser or tab open - that I am not actively using - is counted in these calculations, or removed. I think that both Google and Yahoo would probably see a significant drop if those numbers are in there and then would be dropped.

However, having some teenage nieces on My Mysapce friends page and seeing the number of often weird messages they post to all their friends, I can certainly see why they are tops.