Reporting on Google’s market share as of late is like reporting on the sky (do you know it’s blue?).
But right this moment, Searching for Alpha printed an article with a clickable headline of ChatGPT eats away at Google search’s dominance.
This text (which is paywalled, so I’m not linking to it) is predicated on a Financial institution of America report (why is Financial institution of America speaking about search market share?), which is predicated on knowledge from StatCounter and Comparable Net, which I realized of by way of an X publish by Greg Sterling.
By the numbers. Google’s worldwide search market share, in line with StatCounter:
- October 2023: 91.53%
- October 2022: 92.34%
That is Google’s lowest world search market share prior to now 12 months. However is that this ChatGPT consuming into Google’s search market share? Extraordinarily unlikely.
The issue? Statcounter doesn’t observe ChatGPT as a result of – howdy? – it isn’t a search engine. It’s an LLM-based generative AI chatbot.
Comparatively secure. Google Search has been “comparatively secure” over the previous 12 months, in line with the report. Properly, sure. However we are able to really go additional again than that on StatCounter.
Google has been “comparatively secure” since August 2015. That’s the month Google surpassed 91% search market share worldwide for the primary time.
Prior to now seven years, Googe’s search market share has bounced round from 91.1% (December 2015) to 93.37% (February 2023). For many of those eight years, ChatGPT didn’t exist, together with from April to August 2018 when Google’s search market share dipped under 91%.
What about Bing? Microsoft Bing remains to be down year-on-year, 3.13% (October 2023) vs. 3.59% (October 2022), in line with Statcounter. In the meantime, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has warned us that AI will make Google extra dominant.
Dig deeper. The brand new Bing has did not take any market share from Google after six months.
Different numbers. Some month-over-month comparisons from Comparable Net:
- Google site visitors declined to 2.8 billion (down 0.4%).
- Bard site visitors elevated to eight.7 million (up 2%).
- Bing site visitors elevated to 42.7 million (up 8%)
- ChatGPT site visitors elevated to 55 million (up 4%). An vital reminder right here – ChatGPT’s site visitors is barely 2% of Google’s internet site visitors.
Why we care. Generative AI is – and can proceed to – reshape search as we all know it. However false narratives aren’t useful for anyone. Google remains to be as dominant because it has been since 2015. The impression of Google, ChatGPT and generative AI on search is a narrative for search entrepreneurs to observe. However for now, there’s nothing to see right here.
