May 19, 2009

Google Sites remained the top search destination for Web surfers in April, with 9.5 billion searches throughout the month, according to data released Monday from comScore.

Google was the only major search to gain market share in April. The site was up 0.5 percent to land at 64.2 percent overall. Yahoo and Microsoft came in at 20.4 percent and 8.2 percent respectively, both down 0.1 percent. Ask.com remained flat at 3.8 percent of the market, followed by AOL, which was down 0.3 percent to 3.4 percent.

Overall core search queries were up 3 percent to 14.8 billion. Google was up 4 percent to 9.5 billion, followed by Yahoo (up 2 percent to 3 billion), Microsoft (up 1 percent to 1.2 billion), Ask (up 3 percent to 563 million), and AOL (down 6 percent to 496 million).

Factoring in things such as mapping, local directories, and other "expanded" searches, Google Sites had 13 billion searches, up 5 percent from March. Yahoo came in second with 3.2 billion, followed by Microsoft with 1.3 billion and AOL with 795 million.