BOSTON - According to Compete search market-share report released July 11, MSN/Live's query volume increased by 67 percent from May to June 2007, putting Microsoft's search share of 13.2 percent just behind Yahoo!'s 19.6 percent. Google still leads with a whopping 62.7 percent (down from 67 percent in May). Microsoft's search traffic is up 47 percent over one year ago.
All of this raises an interesting question in the minds of the folks at Compete: Will Microsoft overtake Yahoo! as a serious competitor to Google?
Scott Rabinowitz, chief executive officer of Traffic Dude, stepped in to help shed some light on the subject and whether it will have an impact on the adult industry.
Rabinowitz explained the reality of the situation: Google has solidified the top search engine position, and there is not much chance Yahoo! will lose its second-place slot, at least any time soon. Yahoo!'s assets impress in the traffic arena, as it purchases ad networks and portals, adding layers to its overall traffic activity constantly and keeping it on top of the game.
"It is somewhat possible [for Microsoft to knock Yahoo! out of second place]," he admitted. "The leverage that Microsoft and its MSN property have is that every newly shipped PC defaults to Internet Explorer as the primary browser and even defaults [to the] MSN search engine as the home page. But that does not guarantee people will not change their home page manually."
Rabinowitz does not see the battle for search supremacy having much impact on search engine optimization and search engine advertising, at least where adult entertainment is concerned.
"People within our industry will still be able to optimize as long as people are receptive to, acknowledge, and work with the [search engines'] requirements to make sure that they are doing search engine optimization according to the standards for each engine," he said.
