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ComScore: Baidu beats Microsoft properties in worldwide search

Using its new qSearch 2.0 method of computation, ComScore has released its worldwide search-activity stats for August. Microsoft is No. 4 in the latest standings.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

Using its new qSearch 2.0 method of computation, ComScore has released its worldwide search-activity stats for August. Microsoft is No. 4 in the latest standings.

(Just in case you were confused, as I was: This is not the Comscore Media Metrix (audience-measurement) Web traffic data. It seems to be the new and improved successor to the search-engine market share data that ComScore now calls "online search activity worldwide.)

Of the 61 billion searches conducted worldwide two months ago, 2.2 billion of them were conducted from Microsoft sites. Coming in at No. 1 were Google sites, with 37.1 billion. Yahoo sites were No. 2 with 8.5 billion, and at No. 3, Baidu.com, the Chinese search site, at 3.3 billion. The No. 5 player, NHN Corp. of Korea, was nipping at No. 4 Microsoft's heels, with 2 billion searches in August.

About 5 billion of Google's searches came via YouTube.com, according to Comscore's data, released on October 10.

In August, Microsoft said it was in favor of the new qSearch 2.0 computational method. Brad Goldberg, General Manager of Search Marketing with Microsoft’s Search Business Unit, said at that time:

"(T)he refinements comScore has instituted with qSearch 2.0 are positive for the industry and advertisers, as its methodology more accurately measures search traffic sources that are core to customer engagement and enables advertisers to get the most out of search.”

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