Nielsen//NetRatings Reveals Top Search Websites

Posted on April 16, 2002

Nielsen//NetRatings, a provider Internet audience measurement and analysis, revealed that Yahoo!, MSN and Google led the online search category for February 2002. Yahoo! Search took the No. 1 spot as the top ranking search engine, attracting more than 35 million visitors in February. MSN Search claimed 32 million surfers while Google drew more than 27 million. Rounding out the top 5 list, more than 24 million surfers logged on to AOL Search while 11 million surfers searched the Internet using Ask Jeeves (see Table below).

"Search engines continue to be the 'go-to' destination on the Web, with new features and services being added on a regular basis," said Lisa Strand, director and chief ecommerce analyst. "As fee-based services are gradually incorporated and competition between the various search engines intensifies, it's becoming increasingly important to compare search-specific traffic at various online destinations."

Nielsen//NetRatings Top Search Engines
(U.S., Combined Home & Work)

Rank	Brand or Channel	Unique Audience (000)	Active Reach (%)	Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1.	Yahoo! Search	35,166	29.60	0:09:14
2.	MSN Search	32,338	27.22	0:08:27
3.	Google	27,444	23.10	0:26:29
4.	AOL Search	24,294	20.45	0:10:27
5.	Ask Jeeves	11,203	9.43	0:11:18

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, February 2002

The study is based on Nielsen//NetRatings' new MarketView reporting system, which is built on content-based brand aggregation, consisting of Parents, Brands and Channels. MarketView segments online destinations, such as MSN and Yahoo! portals, based on content to accurately reflect and provide an in-depth view of their business operations and website taxonomy.