During the recent Search Marketing Expo (SMX) Advanced conference, I got a chance to ask new Microsoft Search GM Satya Nadella whether Microsoft might follow suit with the corporate incentives it was offering to enterprise customers who chose to use Live Search and win rewards. Those search incentives came in the form of discounts on Microsoft software and other products.
Apparently, someone at MSN was listening, and thinking along the very same lines. MSN and Microsoft Live’s U.S. search query volume showed a 67% increase from May to June, according to Internet metrics company Compete, Inc. at least partially attributable to a prize award program.
“A good portion of the additional Live searches are coming from the Live Search Club, where you can apparently play games for points which you can redeem for fine Microsoft products,” said Steve Willis, a Compete analyst, in a blog post Monday. “All of the games involve using Live’s search engine — to get the points, you have to search with Live.”
Google saw its search query volume drop from 67% in May to 62.7% in June, a 6.5% decline. Yahoo’s search query share stood at 19.6% in June, down from 19.7% in May and from 26.7% in June 2006. Ask.com’s search query share declined to 3.3% in June, down 3.5% in May and 4.1% from June 2006.
Internet metrics company comScore published its take on U.S. search market share numbers for May: Google (50.7%), Yahoo sites (26.4%), Microsoft sites (10.3%), and Ask (5%).
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