Key Takeaways: Search Engine Statistics

• Although Google is by far the most widely used online search engine worldwide, its competitors are still growing.
• As search engines grow, so does privacy awareness. The “right to be forgotten” from search engines began in the European Union, and 74% of Americans believe they should have the same right.
• Search results influence user purchasing decisions.
• More than half of all online search traffic comes from mobile devices.

Search engines have become more widely used over time, and they have created a major industry that shapes the way all other businesses operate. We’ve compiled a list of 22 search engine statistics to give you an idea about what the current trends in the search industry are like and where it might go in the future.

Search engines won’t go away anytime soon, but the way internet users are finding information online continues to change. Mobile devices have become the most common way to use search engines, Google remains dominant in spite of growing competition and search engine privacy is an increasing concern among Americans.

Stick with us as we dive into the most important search engine statistics of 2024.

Search Engine Statistics: Quick Look

Out of all of our findings, we thought these were the most noteworthy search engine statistics.

• On average, Google processes 40,000 search queries every second. This translates to 3.5 billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion per year.
• Of all search traffic, 57% comes from mobile devices.
• 77% of Google users search with Google three or more times per day.
• 74% of Americans believe it’s important to “keep things about themselves from being searchable online.”

Expert Opinion: Search Engine Privacy

Sandeep Babu is a distinguished writer within the cybersecurity industry, contributing in-depth analyses, insightful commentaries, and forward-thinking perspectives in several leading platforms in the tech industry, including Geekflare, Make Use Of (MUO) and Small Business Trends.

When it comes to searching things online, most people turn to Google. So it is no surprise that Google is a search engine giant with around 90% of the market share.

However, you should be aware that Google is infamous for tracking people online: Google tracks and mines searches to package them into data profiles. If you, like me, don’t like being tracked, you can explore other search engines. 

For example, you can use DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine. DuckDuckGo is my favorite search engine nowadays because it offers a completely anonymous search experience. It saves no data about me. Every time I open DuckDuckGo, it starts fresh: there is no search history.

Other privacy-focused search engines and DuckDuckGo alternatives you can explore are Startpage, SearchEncrypt and Giburu. 

You should note that you will see different results using privacy-focused search engines. This is because, unlike Google, privacy-focused search engines don’t provide search results influenced by users’ activity.

Search Engine Facts

Based on all the statistics we’ve gathered, we deduced a few important facts about search engines themselves. The search engine industry is rapidly changing, so it will help to know a few current trends as you read the article.

• Google Search is the most widely used search engine by far, but its competitors are growing.
• Baidu is at the top of the search market in China, and Yandex is the main search engine in Russia.
• The majority of Google’s search traffic comes from mobile devices.
• There’s a large difference in the rankings of search results between mobile and desktop SERPs.

Search Engine Market Statistics

First we’ll begin with information about the search engine market itself. Google is the dominant search engine for most of the world, but that can vary by region.

1. How Much of the Global Search Market Is Owned by Google?

It’s no surprise that Google Search, the most widely used search engine of all time, owns the vast majority of the global search market. According to Statcounter, Google made up 91.94% of the global search market in December 2021, followed by Bing at 2.86% and Yahoo at 1.5%.¹

2. Which Search Engine Dominates the Search Market in China?

However, Baidu is the top search engine in China, where it owns 85.48% of the search market share. In China, Google has a meager 2.93% market share. Bing owns more of the market share in China than Google with 4.44%. Meanwhile, the Baidu competitor Sogou was reported to own 3.66% of the search market.²

3. Which Search Engine Accounts for Most of the US Mobile Search Market?

Google makes up 95% of the mobile search market in the United States, as of December 2021, according to Statcounter. The exact percentage may change slightly, but we don’t foresee Google coming down from its lofty position anytime soon.¹⁵

4. How Many Total Queries Has DuckDuckGo Processed?

DuckDuckGo — a privacy-friendly search engine and the best Google alternative, celebrated its billionth search query on January 13, 2022. Even though no other search engine comes close to Google’s daily traffic or market share, other search engines are still growing.³ Read our full DuckDuckGo review for more information.

Google Search Engine Statistics

There’s no question Google is the most dominant search engine in the world. There are dozens of search engines on the web, but none of them come close to reaching anything like Google’s daily traffic loads.

5. How Many Google Searches Are There Each Day?

To illustrate our point, Google processes an average of 40,000 search queries every second worldwide, or 3.5 billion searches daily and 1.2 trillion searches per year.⁴

6. How Many Searches on Google Are Looking for Local Information?

Around 46% of all Google searches are searches for something local to the user.⁵

7. How Much of the World’s Search Traffic Belongs to Google?

Google makes up 76% of all mobile search traffic worldwide and 86% of all search traffic for desktop. Note that Google gets more searches from mobile devices than desktop computers. We discuss mobile search statistics in greater detail below.⁵

8. How Wide Is Google’s Reach on the Internet?

Approximately 82% of traffic on the web analyzed by WhoTracks.Me contains third-party scripts owned by Google. Whether or not you’re using a Google product or service, Google code is still present on a large portion of the web.⁶

9. What Percentage of Web Pages Get Organic Search Traffic From Google?

According to research by Ahrefs, 90.63% of web pages on the internet get no organic traffic at all from Google, and 5.29% receive fewer than 10 visits per month. This can happen when a web page’s content isn’t optimized for Google Search. 

Backlinks play an important role in boosting a web page’s SEO score, but 66.31% of web pages don’t have any types of links, and 26.29% have fewer than three.⁷

Search Engine Usage Statistics

10. How Much Search Traffic Comes From Mobile Devices?

BrightEdge Research reports that 57% of all search traffic is mobile. Consumers are now more likely to use a smartphone or tablet to perform searches on the web, whereas 43% of searches are on desktop.

Around 51% of customers say that they usually discover new products on their mobile devices. Companies are able to attract a lot of customers by having mobile sites, as 69% of smartphone users have stated their preference for purchasing from mobile sites more often than desktop sites.⁸

11. How Do SERPs Differ Between Mobile and Desktop Devices?

There’s a wide divergence in search rankings between mobile and desktop SERPs, even if it’s the same query for the same search engine. A full 79% of all keywords, and 47% of keywords within the first 20 positions, are assigned different rankings on mobile and desktop SERPs.⁸

12. How Much Web Traffic Is Organic Search?

Organic search continues to be the main source of trackable website traffic. Organic search makes up 53.3% of all web traffic, while other channels, such as social media, trail behind.⁹

13. What Portion of Companies’ Revenue Comes From Organic Search?

BrightEdge Research reports that technology and B2B companies make roughly twice the amount of money from organic search alone than from all other channels combined.⁹

14. How Often Are the Majority of Keywords Searched For?

Keyword research from Ahrefs shows that the vast majority of U.S. search queries have hardly been searched at all. Ahrefs states that 95% of search queries in the U.S. are searched fewer than 10 times per month, based on a sample of 3.8 billion keywords.¹⁶

Search Engine User Statistics

Now that we’ve covered some of the ways search engines are used, let’s talk more about the users themselves.

15. How Much Do Search Results Influence Purchasing Decisions?

Search results have a significant influence on the purchasing habits of their users. Google reports that 39% of purchasers made their buying choices as the result of a relevant search.¹⁰

16. What Percentage of Users Are Using Voice Search?

Google reports that 27% of people around the world are using voice search to find information on mobile.¹¹

17. How Often Do Users Search for Information on Google?

A report from Moz shows that 77% of its respondents use Google three times or more per day. The frequency of Google searches is correlated with age, with 80% users between 13 and 21 years old using Google more than three times per day. Only 60% of users over 60 search with Google at least three times per day.¹²

18. Are Searchers More Likely to Click on Organic Results or Ads?

Users are far more likely to click on organic search results than ads. About 47% of respondents to Moz’s report said that they “rarely or never click on ads,” and 25% said they clicked on the “organic results much more than the ads.”

Only 19% didn’t distinguish between ads and organic search results — these respondents clicked on whichever best answered the searcher’s question. About 4% clicked on ads more than organic search results, and 4% “rarely or never” clicked on organic search results.¹²

Search Engine Privacy Statistics

The Pew Research Center surveyed a range of American citizens on issues related to online privacy. The results of the report show that the majority of Americans regard the privacy of their data as either “very important” or “somewhat important” while also feeling like there isn’t much they can do to control their data. 

If you care about online privacy, check out our guide on tools to help ensure your privacy online.

19. What Percentage of Americans Think Being in Control of Their Data Is Important?

A whopping 74% of respondents said “being in control of who can get info about you” is “very important” to them, while 19% regarded it as “somewhat important.” In total, 93% of Americans value having control over their data.”¹³

20. What Percentage of Americans Are Confident That Search Engines Will Respect Their Search Data?

The Pew study reports that 66% of respondents said they are not confident that records of their search activity collected by search engines will be private and secure.

Of those, 41% said they were “not at all confident” about the privacy and security of their search data, while 25% were “not too confident.” About 14% were “somewhat confident” about the confidentiality of their search data and only 2% were “very confident” about it.¹³

21. How Many Americans Support the Right to Be Forgotten From Search Engines?

The “right to be forgotten” is a term that gained widespread attention after a privacy case between the European Court of Justice and Google in 2014. It refers to the right of European Union citizens to have their personal information removed from search engine results and databases under certain circumstances. Since then, issues of online privacy have reached a wider awareness.

The results of another survey from Pew Research suggest that the majority of Americans support the right to have some of their personal information removed from online searches. 

Approximately 74% of surveyed Americans said it was important to “keep things about themselves from being searchable online,” whereas 23% thought it was more important to have the ability to “discover potentially useful information about others.”¹⁴

22. How Many Americans Support the Right to Have Embarrassing Images, Employment Records, and Media Coverage of Them Removed From Search Results?

A full 85% of adults in the United States believe all Americans should have the right to have images and videos of them removed from public search results if the content is embarrassing, sensitive or otherwise incriminating. 

About 67% believe Americans should have the right to be forgotten when employment history or work records are involved, and 56% say they should have the right to have negative media coverage about them removed from public search results.

Only 39% of respondents believe data collected by law enforcement, such as criminal records or mugshots, should fall under the right to be forgotten.¹⁴

Future Search Engine Trends to Consider

These statistics should give you a snapshot of the current trends in the search engine industry and an idea for where it might go next. Google is obviously the top search engine, but its competitors are still managing to stay afloat — and some of them have recently reached new growth milestones. 

The future of online search, and the internet in general, appears to be headed toward mobile. It’s not surprising to learn that 57% of search traffic comes from mobile devices when smartphones and tablets are more ubiquitous than ever. They’re less expensive than desktop computers and they’re far more portable and convenient to use.

Internet users are becoming more concerned about their online privacy and what search companies do with their data.

The “right to be forgotten” is an idea that’s reached widespread awareness since a major privacy case in 2014, and 66% of Americans today are not confident that search companies will keep their data private and secure. What will be done about protecting user privacy is another question altogether.

Final Thoughts

We hope you found our list of 22 search engine statistics useful. Search engines aren’t going away, but online search tools and the way we use them continue to evolve every day.

If you want to learn how other industries and sectors are evolving, we have similar posts such as cybersecurity statistics, online shopping statistics, online gaming statistics and data privacy statistics. For a little insight on how AI is progressing, check out our AI writing statistics.

What did you think were the most interesting statistics? Were there any search engine facts you thought were especially surprising? Let us know what you think in the comments below, and as always, thank you for reading.

Sources:

1. Statcounter: Search Engine Market Share 
2. Statcounter: Search Engine Market Share, China
3. DuckDuckGo
4. InternetLiveStats
5. SaasScout
6. Arxiv.org
7. Ahrefs: Search Traffic
8. BrightEdge: Mobile Research
9. BrightEdge: Channel Report 2019
10. ThinkWithGoogle: Consumer Trends
11. ThinkWithGoogle: Marketing Strategies
12. Moz
13. Pew Research: Americans’ Attitudes
14. Pew Research: Personal Info Rights
15. GS Search Engine Market Share
16. Ahrefs: Long-Tail Keywords

FAQ: Search Engine Statistics

• What Are the Five Most Commonly Used Search Engines?

  The five most widely used search engines are Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu and Yandex. Baidu is the most popular search engine in China and Yandex is the most popular in Russia.

• What Is the Most Used Search Engine?

  Google is the most widely used search engine in most parts of the world.

• What Percentage of People Use Which Search Engine?

  The vast majority of people use Google, which made up 91.94% of the global search market in December 2021. Bing took second place, with 2.86% of the global market share, followed by Yahoo at 1.5%, Baidu at 1.37%, Yandex at 1.1% and DuckDuckGo at 0.67%.