Search engines have become popular over time and a backbone on which many businesses operate.
For example, businesses can reach more customers by marketing their services through search engines. Likewise, search engines are incredible research tools for finding information, such as new hires and competitor research.
So, how do search engines operate? Read this search engine statistics round-up to find the latest and most exciting data for the entire industry.
Top 6 Search Engine Statistics (Editor’s Pick)
- The United States sent the most desktop traffic to Google in February 2023.
- Google was the most used mobile phone search engine at 93.74% as of February 2023.
- “Google” was the most searched keyword on Google worldwide in 2022.
- As of May 2022, Bing had nearly 1.2 billion visits worldwide.
- In February 2023, Yahoo! received around 2.83 billion global visits.
- In 2022, DuckDuckGo processed around 99.7 million search queries daily.
Infographic
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/search-engine-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/top-search-engine-statistics.png" alt="Top 6 Search Engine Statistics" width="768" border="0" height="744.42649434572" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/top-search-engine-statistics-768x744.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/top-search-engine-statistics-300x291.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/top-search-engine-statistics-1024x992.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/top-search-engine-statistics.png 1238w" sizes="auto"></a>
Bing was second with 8.85%, while Yahoo! was third with 2.59%.
Other search engines by market share are shown in the table below:
| Search Engine | Percentage Market Share |
|---|---|
| 84.69% | |
| Bing | 8.85% |
| Yahoo! | 2.59% |
| Yandex | 1.31% |
| DuckDuckGo | 0.83% |
| Baidu | 0.54% |
Yahoo! was second in the US, with a 2.52% market share, followed by DuckDuckGo, with 2.21%.
| Search Engine | Percentage Market Share in the US |
|---|---|
| 93.56% | |
| Yahoo! | 2.52% |
| DuckDuckGo | 2.21% |
| Bing | 1.45% |
Sogou took the second position with 12.7%, overpowering search engines like Bing and Google.
| Search Engine | Percentage Market Share in China |
|---|---|
| Baidu | 65.21% |
| Sogou | 12.7% |
| Bing | 11.47% |
| Haosou | 3.8% |
| 2.53% |
Google was the UK’s most preferred search engine in September 2021.
Bing was the second with 9.62%, followed by Yahoo! with 2.36%.
| Search Engine | Percentage Market Share in the UK |
|---|---|
| 86.31% | |
| Bing | 9.61% |
| Yahoo! | 2.36% |
| DuckDuckGo | 1.01% |
Search Engine Statistics by Device
5. Tablets and smartphones accounted for 63% of organic search engine traffic in the USA in Q4 2021.
In Q1 2021, tablets and smartphones accounted for 59% of organic search engine visits. This increased to 61% in Q2 2021 and 64% in Q3.
6. The United States sent the most desktop traffic to Google as of February 2023.
The United States sent 27.15% of Google traffic, followed by India with 4.47%.
| Country | Google Traffic Sent in Percentage |
|---|---|
| United States | 27.15% |
| India | 4.47% |
| Brazil | 4.43% |
| United Kingdom | 3.83% |
| Japan | 3.67% |
| Others | 50.55% |
7. Mobile devices (except tablets) accounted for 59.16 % of the global search engine traffic in Q4 2022.
In 2022, mobile devices accounted for 59.54% in Q3, 58.99% in Q2, and 55.79% in Q1. Whereas, in 2021, they generated 54.8% in Q1, 55.09% in Q2, 55.78% in Q3, and 54.4% in Q4.
8. Google was the most used mobile phone search engine at 93.74% as of February 2023.
Yahoo!’s mobile search engine market share was second at 3.53%, while Bing came third at 0.34%.
Popular Google Search Engine Statistics
9. As of February 2022, 15% of all daily search queries on the Google search engine were first-time search queries.
This means 3 in every 20 queries are new to Google. In contrast, the Google search engine has seen 85% of the other queries.
10. Google processed about 99,000 search queries every second in 2022.
This translates to around 5.94 million searches per minute and about 8.5 million searches daily.
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/search-engine-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/google-search-queries.png" alt="Google Search Queries Statistics" width="768" border="0" height="361.90895447724" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/google-search-queries-768x362.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/google-search-queries-300x141.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/google-search-queries-1024x483.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/google-search-queries-1536x724.png 1536w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/google-search-queries.png 1999w" sizes="auto"></a>
11. "Google" was the most searched keyword on Google worldwide in 2022.
“Google” had an index rating of 100. The keyword “YouTube” followed with an index rating of 75.
| Most Popular Keyword on Google | Index Rating |
|---|---|
| 100 | |
| YouTube | 75 |
| Video | 68 |
| 62 | |
| Weather | 58 |
| Translate | 46 |
| 44 | |
| News | 38 |
| Amazon | 37 |
| 33 | |
| WhatsApp Web | 28 |
| Videos | 28 |
| Gmail | 25 |
| Tiempo | 25 |
| AS | 23 |
| Traductor | 21 |
| Satta | 19 |
| Google Translate | 18 |
| 18 | |
| Samsung | 18 |
12. Google voice search makes up 20% of all Google searches.
Although this was data collected in 2016, there has not been any recent information to beat the record.
Popular Bing Search Engine Statistics
Meanwhile, Google leads with 93.37%, while Yahoo! is third after Bing with 1.13%.
| Search Engine | Market Share Percentage Rank |
|---|---|
| 93.37% | |
| Bing | 2.82% |
| Yahoo! | 1.13% |
| Yandex | 0.85% |
| DuckDuckGo | 0.52% |
| Baidu | 0.45% |
14. Bing was available in about 105 different languages as of March 2023.
This includes languages in around 238 countries/regions where Bing was available.
15. As of May 2022, Bing had nearly 1.2 billion visits worldwide.
Before this, Bing had 1.1 billion visitors in February 2022, which shot up to 1.3 billion in March of the same year.
16. Facebook was the most searched keyword on Bing in the US as of January 2021.
Facebook had over 12.9 million searches, followed by YouTube, with over 11.4 million searches. The table below shows the other ten popular keywords searched on Bing in the same period.
| Keyword | Search Volume |
|---|---|
| 12,983,821 | |
| YouTube | 11,452,722 |
| 8,060,698 | |
| Gmail | 6,043,283 |
| Bing homepage quiz | 5,578,736 |
| Amazon | 4,838,409 |
| Bing | 4,620,531 |
| News for you | 4,298,308 |
| Yahoo | 3,746,439 |
| eBay | 3,428,642 |
Popular Yahoo! Search Engine Statistics
17. In February 2023, Yahoo! received around 2.83 billion global visits.
In comparison, the search engine received 3.21 billion visits in January 2023. Meanwhile, in December 2021, it had 3.01 billion visits.
18. More than half of Yahoo! traffic in February 2023 came from the United States.
The United States claimed 53.55% of the total traffic. Meanwhile, 4.59% of the traffic came from Taiwan and 3.95% from Canada.
| Country | Yahoo! Traffic in Percentage |
|---|---|
| United States | 53.55% |
| Taiwan | 4.59% |
| Canada | 3.95% |
| United Kingdom | 3.94% |
| France | 3.20% |
| Others | 30.77% |
19. Yahoo! has more male than female users as of March 2023.
56.57% of Yahoo! users in March 2023 were males, while 43.43% were females.
Popular DuckDuckGo Search Engine Statistics
Most of the market share came from the United States at 2.52%, followed by Germany at 1.05%. The United Kingdom was third with 0.87%, while France and Europe took the fourth and fifth positions with 0.6% and 0.59%, respectively.
21. In 2022, DuckDuckGo processed around 99.7 million search queries daily.
In contrast, the search engine handled 96.7 million searches daily in the previous year. Thus, an increment of about 3.06% of its annual searches between 2021 and 2022.
22. DuckDuckGo had approximately 784.83 million global visits in February 2023.
In December 2022, the search engine recorded 855.3 million visits, which shot up to 869.6 million visits in the next month, January 2023.
23. As of March 2023, DuckDuckGo had 125 employees.
Among these, 71% were women, while only 29% were males.
24. White people were the majority ethnicity group of DuckDuckGo employees as of March 2023.
Whites accounted for 60% of DuckDuckGo employees, followed by Hispanic or Latinos at 24%. Blacks or African Americans came third at 12%, with Asians being the least at 4%.
25. DuckDuckGo controlled 1.94% of the US total search engine market as of February 2023.
United States search engine giant, Google, claimed 88.99% market share, followed by Bing with 6.33%. DuckDuckGo was fourth.
| Search Engine | Percentage Market Share in the US |
|---|---|
| 88.99% | |
| Bing | 6.33% |
| Yahoo! | 2.36% |
| DuckDuckGo | 1.94% |
| Yandex! | 0.13% |
| Ecosia | 0.07% |
Popular Yandex Search Engine Statistics
26. Yandex was the leading search engine in Russia as of February 2023.
Yandex claimed 54.73% of the Russian search engine market share, ahead of Google with 43.47%, Bing with 1%, DuckDuckGo with 0.27%, and Yahoo! with 0.25%.
27. Yandex employed more than 21,000 people in 2021.
This was a 35% increase compared to the employee count in the previous year.
Of these, 25% worked in the company’s search and portal business segment, while 18% worked in RideTech and FoodTech segments.
Yandex came fourth, while Google took the lead with 93.37% global search engine market share. Bing was second with 2.82%, while Yahoo! was third with 1.13%.
| Search Engine | Global Search Engine Market Share in Percentage |
|---|---|
| 93.37% | |
| Bing | 2.82% |
| Yahoo! | 1.13% |
| Yandex | 0.85% |
| DuckDuckGo | 0.52% |
| Baidu | 0.45% |
29. In 2022, Yandex's annual revenue was approximately 521.7 billion Russian rubles.
This is equivalent to 6,776,883,000 United States dollars. Compared to 2021, the company got approximately a 46.5% annual revenue increase.
Popular Baidu Search Engine Statistics
30. In 2022, Baidu's annual revenue was over $17.9 billion.
Baidu generated over $19.5 billion in revenue the previous year, meaning the search engine suffered a significant revenue decline in 2022.
31. Baidu was China's most prominent search engine as of February 2023.
Baidu claimed 55.8% of China’s search engine market, followed by Bing at 14.57%.
| Search Engine | Percentage Market Share in China |
|---|---|
| Baidu | 55.8% |
| Bing | 14.57% |
| Sogou | 14.53% |
| Haosou | 5.1% |
| 4.85% | |
| Yandex | 2.75% |
32. In February 2023, Baidu garnered 285.2 million visits.
In December 2022, the search engine received 331 million visits, which decreased to 282.3 million in January 2023 before shooting up to 285.2 million in February.
33. There were three times as many male Baidu users as female users as of March 2023.
71.92% of the Baidu users were males, while 28.08% were females.
Search Engine User Statistics
34. As of August 2022, 27% of the worldwide online population used Voice search.
Among the people who preferred the voice search, 59% were aged 18-24, 65% were aged 25-49, and 57% were over 50.
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/search-engine-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/voice-search-preference.png" alt="Voice Search Preference by Age" width="768" border="0" height="750.48859934853" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/voice-search-preference-768x750.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/voice-search-preference-300x293.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/voice-search-preference-1024x1000.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/voice-search-preference.png 1228w" sizes="auto"></a>
35. About 85% of Americans used search engines daily as of February 2021.
Of these, 31% reported going online almost constantly, 48% went online several times a day, 6% at least once a day, and 8% less than daily. Meanwhile, 7% said they do not use search engines/the internet at all.
36. In Japan, Google was the most popular search engine as of March 2022.
Google claimed over 76% of Japan’s search engine market, followed by Yahoo! with 16.6%.
Search Engine Statistics and Facts by Usage
37. As of February 2023, Google.com was the most popular website in the search engines category.
Users spent 10.54 minutes on Google.com, with an average of 8.49 pages per visit. Meanwhile, Baidu.com came second, with users spending 5.24 minutes with an average of 8.08 pages per visit.
| Website | Average Visit Duration in Minutes | Pages per Visit |
|---|---|---|
| Google.com | 10.54 | 8.59 |
| Baidu.com | 5.24 | 8.08 |
| Yandex.ru | 9.31 | 9.33 |
| Bing.com | 7.17 | 5.92 |
| DuckDuckGo.com | 8.58 | 7.02 |
38. More than 76% of consumers used search engines to find the physical location of places/businesses as of April 2021.
Among those, almost 45% will visit the location in person after finding its online presence from search engines.
39. As of January 2022, Google generated more than half of all search engine queries in the US.
Specifically, Google generated about 61.4% of the US’s core searches, while Microsoft search engines generated 25%.
Search Engine Statistics on Privacy
40. As of January 2022, 70% of Americans thought controlling who sees their online information was difficult.
Thus, 20-39% of Americans were willing to give their data in tradeoff to access search engines.
41. In August 2022, 62% of people across generations said they saw false or misleading information from search engines every week.
Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Z were more confident verifying any video, image, or text they saw online than the Silent and Baby Boomers generations.
Search Engine Fun Facts
42. By 2026, the search engine market is expected to achieve a 25.5% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR).
This is projected due to various technological advancements such as machine learning, deep neural networks, and AI technologies that will likely breed next-generation search engines.
43. Archie was the first search engine founded in 1990.
Alan Emtage, a university student at McGill University in Montreal, invented Archie in 1990. Other search engines continued developing, as tabled below.
| Search Engine | Year Established |
|---|---|
| Archie | 1990 |
| World Wide Web Wanderer | 1993 |
| web crawler | 1994 |
| Lycoss | 1994 |
| Yahoo! | 1994 |
| Alta Vista/Scooter | 1995 |
| Hotbot | 1996 |
| Yandex | 1997 |
| 1998 | |
| Baidu | 2000 |
| DuckDuckGo | 2008 |
| Bing | 2009 |
| Ecosia | 2009 |
Understand the Search Engine of Your Choice!
Search engines have answers to almost everything you would want to know!
Thus, these critical personal/business tools will never vanish but will evolve in how we use them.
However, before getting too comfortable with search engines, consider how to protect your online privacy while using them. That way, you’ll rule out most identity theft cases that result from using search engines.
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