Hitwise recently released February report. According to the report, Google share for all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending Feb.28, 2009 was a whopping 72.11%. The figures show that Google is well ahead of its nearest rivals. Yahoo! Search accounted for 17% of the searches, a decrease of -17% from the previous year. MSN search and ASK.com share were 5.56% and 3.74 % respectively.
Another insight provided by the report was that the length of search queries has increased over the last one year. Search queries, averaging searches of five to less then 8 words in length have increased 9 % between Feb, 2008 and Feb, 2009. Searches of 8 or more words increased 20 percent over the same time period. It also reveals that shorter search queries, those averaging 1-4 words long, have decreased 2 %. Searches of 2 words comprised the bulk of searches with a share of 23.47 % of all queries.
The reports also showed that search engines are the primary way the internet users search for different products and services. Health and Medical industry received 46.52% of all category traffic from search engines. Similarly, Travel, Shopping & classifieds, News and Media were other industries which have a big share of internet traffic coming from search engines.