40+ Search Engine Statistics, Facts & Trends (2026)

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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


top search engine statistics

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1. As of January 2023, Google search commands the highest global market share at 84.69%.

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 EnginePercentage Market Share
Google84.69%
Bing8.85%
Yahoo!2.59%
Yandex1.31%
DuckDuckGo0.83%
Baidu0.54%

2. Google had a 93.56% mobile search market share in the United States in 2022.

Yahoo! was second in the US, with a 2.52% market share, followed by DuckDuckGo, with 2.21%.

Search EnginePercentage Market Share in the US
Google93.56%
Yahoo!2.52%
DuckDuckGo2.21%
Bing1.45%

3. Baidu commands 65.21% of China’s search engine market share as of January 2023.

Sogou took the second position with 12.7%, overpowering search engines like Bing and Google.

Search EnginePercentage Market Share in China
Baidu65.21%
Sogou12.7%
Bing11.47%
Haosou3.8%
Google2.53%

4. Google accounted for 86.31% market share in the UK in September 2021.

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 EnginePercentage Market Share in the UK
Google86.31%
Bing9.61%
Yahoo!2.36%
DuckDuckGo1.01%

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%.

CountryGoogle Traffic Sent in Percentage
United States27.15%
India4.47%
Brazil4.43%
United Kingdom3.83%
Japan3.67%
Others50.55%

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%.

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.

google search queries

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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 GoogleIndex Rating
Google100
YouTube75
Video68
Facebook62
Weather58
Translate46
WhatsApp44
News38
Amazon37
Instagram33
WhatsApp Web28
Videos28
Gmail25
Tiempo25
AS23
Traductor21
Satta19
Google Translate18
Twitter18
Samsung18

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.

13. Bing is the second-largest search engine, with a 2.82% global market share as of February 2023.

Meanwhile, Google leads with 93.37%, while Yahoo! is third after Bing with 1.13%.

Search EngineMarket Share Percentage Rank
Google93.37%
Bing2.82%
Yahoo!1.13%
Yandex0.85%
DuckDuckGo0.52%
Baidu0.45%

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.

KeywordSearch Volume
Facebook12,983,821
YouTube11,452,722
Google8,060,698
Gmail6,043,283
Bing homepage quiz5,578,736
Amazon4,838,409
Bing4,620,531
News for you4,298,308
Yahoo3,746,439
eBay3,428,642

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.

CountryYahoo! Traffic in Percentage
United States53.55%
Taiwan4.59%
Canada3.95%
United Kingdom3.94%
France3.20%
Others30.77%

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.

20. DuckDuckGo had a 0.63% search engine market share worldwide as of August 2021.

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 EnginePercentage Market Share in the US
Google88.99%
Bing6.33%
Yahoo!2.36%
DuckDuckGo1.94%
Yandex!0.13%
Ecosia0.07%

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.


28. Yandex had a 0.85% global search engine market share as of February 2023.

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 EngineGlobal Search Engine Market Share in Percentage
Google93.37%
Bing2.82%
Yahoo!1.13%
Yandex0.85%
DuckDuckGo0.52%
Baidu0.45%

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.

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 EnginePercentage Market Share in China
Baidu55.8%
Bing14.57%
Sogou14.53%
Haosou5.1%
Google4.85%
Yandex2.75%

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

Among the people who preferred the voice search, 59% were aged 18-24, 65% were aged 25-49, and 57% were over 50.

voice search preference by age

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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.


Google claimed over 76% of Japan’s search engine market, followed by Yahoo! with 16.6%.

Search Engine Statistics and Facts by Usage

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.

WebsiteAverage Visit Duration in MinutesPages per Visit
Google.com10.548.59
Baidu.com5.248.08
Yandex.ru9.319.33
Bing.com7.175.92
DuckDuckGo.com8.587.02

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 EngineYear Established
Archie1990
World Wide Web Wanderer1993
web crawler1994
Lycoss1994
Yahoo!1994
Alta Vista/Scooter1995
Hotbot1996
Yandex1997
Google1998
Baidu2000
DuckDuckGo2008
Bing2009
Ecosia2009

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.


References:

  1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/216573/worldwide-market-share-of-search-engines/
  2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/511358/market-share-mobile-search-usa/
  3. https://www.statista.com/statistics/253340/market-share-of-search-engines-in-china-pageviews/
  4. https://www.statista.com/statistics/280269/market-share-held-by-search-engines-in-the-united-kingdom/
  5. https://www.statista.com/statistics/297137/mobile-share-of-us-organic-search-engine-visits/
  6. https://www.similarweb.com/website/google.com/#geography
  7. https://www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-traffic-coming-from-mobile-devices/#:~:text=Mobile%20accounts%20for%20approximately%20half,permanently%20surpassing%20it%20in%202020.
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  12. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/voice-search-statistics/
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  21. https://photutorial.com/duckduckgo-statistics/#
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  28. https://www.statista.com/statistics/225701/revenue-of-yandex-since-2007/
  29. https://www.statista.com/statistics/269032/annual-revenue-of-baidu/
  30. https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/china
  31. https://www.semrush.com/website/baidu.com/overview/
  32. https://www.similarweb.com/website/baidu.com/#demographics
  33. https://www.sdppayroll.com/voice-search-in-your-business-ready/#:~:text=Voice%20search%20is%20one%20of,voice%20search%20on%20mobile%20devices.
  34. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/03/26/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-say-they-are-almost-constantly-online/
  35. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1173906/japan-leading-internet-search-engines/
  36. https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/computers-electronics-and-technology/search-engines/
  37. https://visualobjects.com/digital-marketing/blog/benefits-of-local-seo
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  39. https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/data-privacy-2022
  40. https://www.poynter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/A-Global-Study-on-Information-Literacy-1.pdf
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  42. https://www.serpple.com/blog/history-of-search-engines/

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