This might be hard to believe, but according to recent reports published by Experian – the number of people using search engines is declining. Astonishingly, the trend seen in recent months is the first time that search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc. have not reported phenomenal growth in their user bases.
Since July 2012, the number of visits to major search engines has reduced by over 100 million. In August 2012, only 2.21 billion people from the UK used the help of search engines and the number of visits since August of 2011 has dropped by 40 million. This makes August 2012 the only month in which year-on-year search activity has reduced.
The news is worse for Google, as it is the only major search engine that saw a dip of close to 5% in its year-over-year percentage. Although it still holds a major share of the search engine market, the changes seen in the last few months can cause Google some worry. Google saw its share of searches reduce by 0.02% in the previous month whereas its competitor Yahoo! saw its share of searches increase by 0.04%. Bing, in the meantime, reported no loss or gain in its share of searches.
People are Looking for Alternate Sources
Experts have blamed the Olympics for the recent decline in search activity. People have been glued to their television screens instead of being active on the internet. Interestingly, most people used sports websites for news and videos on the Olympics instead of using search engines. As a result, the Olympics did not feature in the most searched items list even at the height of the Olympic fever. Despite this trend, the blame cannot be placed squarely on the Olympics. Other experts have pointed out that people are slowly looking to social media sites and networks for the latest news. The recent Arab uprising has shown that news often breaks first on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Instead of searching for news items on Google, people can get raw and unfiltered content in the form of tweets, posts, images, etc. on social media platforms.
Although this may not spell the end of search engines, it is an important trend for social media sites and social media marketers. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media outlets must start thinking of including web searches and supervising breaking news topics on their sites.