Search is growing as a reason people go online, surpassing checking news and gaining ground on the number one driver e-mail, according to a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
The study found that of the 94 million Americans online, 59 million—or 63%–reported using a search engine daily in September. That’s a 55% increase over the number who said the same in June 2004.
That growth rate is higher than for e-mail use, but e-mail is still the top online activity for adults. Seventy-four million, or 77% of the sampled population, said they use e-mail daily. Separate tracking by comScore Media Metrix also found that e-mail users spent an average 24 minutes a day on e-mail, compared to less than four minutes on search.
But because of the growth of the overall online population, the proportion accessing e-mail daily has actually fallen. In June 2004, the Pew survey found that 85% of online users accessed e-mail daily.
“The evolution of search engines as everyday consumer Web tools has made them a vital resource for marketers,” said James Lamberti, vice president of comScore Networks. “Search engines are obviously a critical vehicle in reaching consumers during the buy cycle, but they also offer a rich source for consumer profiling, segmentation, and measurement of product demand. To-date, we have only witnessed the preliminary impact of search engines on e-commerce.”
ComScore data showed that Google had the highest traffic among search engines in October, with 89.8 million unique visitors. Yahoo! Search followed with 68 million visitors, followed by MSN Search (49.7 million), Ask Jeeves (43.7 million) and AOL Search (36.1 million).
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