Google’s search market share falls below 90% for the first time since 2015
Google’s share of the global search engine market has fallen below 90% for the first time since 2015, according to Statcounter. Google’s global search market share was below 90% in each of the last three months of 2024.
The data. Here’s a screenshot of search market share in 2024, showing Google falling below 90% – to 89.34% in October; 89.99% in November; and 89.73% in December:
And here’s the last three-month period in which Google’s search market share was below 90%, in 2015: 89.62% in January; 89.47% in February; 89.52% in March:
Why we care. As the old saying goes, one is a point, two is a line, and three is a trend. Clearly, we are seeing a trend of Google losing search market share.
Where is the gout? Google’s search market share appears to be fairly consistent across most regions, with the exception of Asia, which appears to have been a major reason for Google’s overall decline.
American fall? Google’s search market share in the United States peaked at 90.37% in November, but fell to 87.39% in December. During the remaining months of 2024, Google’s search market share in the United States was fairly constant, varying between 86 and 88%.
The big picture. Google has been attacked for almost two years over the quality of its search results while it dominates thanks to its illegal monopoly status with a dominant and consistent share of 90% to 92+% for almost a decade.
Are we finally starting to see newbies switching to other search engines? This will be an area of interest to watch in the coming months.
Where have the researchers gone? Have they looked at AI response engines, like ChatGPT Search and Perplexity? Well, not the way Statcounter measures things. Statcounter primarily tracks Microsoft’s Bing, Yandex, Yahoo, and Baidu, but also has another group called “others,” which includes companies like DuckDuckGo and Ecosia.
Bing, Yandex and Yahoo each gained some of the share lost by Google. Second-place Microsoft Bing was hovering around 4% or just below for the final five months of 2024.
Dig deeper. Optimizing LLMs for B2B SEO: An Overview
Bug or error? You may remember a lot of joy in the search marketing and SEO adjacent space when it it appears that Google has lost a significant share of the search market in April. However, Google’s Huge Search Market Share Loss Wasn’t Real and Statcounter has revised its data.
In this case, the decline seems credible because Google was consistently below 90% in October, November and December.
