Daily Management Review

Analysts: Google Search is losing clicks


08/16/2019


Most Google searches end without clicking on the links, show data of Jumpshot marketing research firm. The number of such “idle” requests has grown since 2016 and continues to increase.



MoneyBlogNewz via flickr
MoneyBlogNewz via flickr
Jumpshot specialists analyzed 40 million search queries in browsers in the US in June, and found that the number of searches on Google that did not end with clicks on links to other sites increased to 50.3%.

Conversions by drop-down results account for 45.3% (including 5.9% for Google sites or services), clicks on advertising links - 4.4%.

This is the worst indicator for the search engine in recent years. The number of unsuccessful requests has been growing since 2016, when it was 43.9%. In the first quarter of 2016, users clicked on links in 54.01% of cases (conversion to advertising was 2.1%). In the second quarter of 2017, the number of requests with clicks on links for the first time dropped below 50% and continued to decline. At the same time, the number of clicks on advertising continued to increase: in the third quarter of 2017 their number exceeded 3%, and in the second quarter of 2019 - 4%.

The number of requests without clicking on links in the Google mobile application is 61.9%. This is a serious jump since January 2016, when the same indicator was 55.1%. The number of clicks on the drop-down results decreased from 44.9% to 38.1%, while conversions to advertising increased from 3.3% to 11.4%.

In part, this situation can be explained by the fact that in recent years Google has concentrated its attention on providing results on individual advertising positions before issuing the main search results.
However, Jumpshot claims that most often Google services are indicated on such separate positions, while “many sites unsuccessfully seek to get on these first lines in the search results”.

Nevertheless, Google remains the most popular search engine in the USA: 94% of all search queries are sent from services owned by Google. The main search engine gets 69.4%, Google Images makes up 20.5%, YouTube - 2.98%, Google Maps - 0.75%. 

Google has repeatedly been fined for its monopoly strategy. In June 2017, Google was fined € 2.4 billion for violating EU antitrust laws - then companies were charged with abuse of a dominant position in the market and providing benefits to their own Google Shopping service. In July 2018, the European Commission fined Google € 4.35 billion for abuse of its dominant position in the market for operating systems for Android mobile devices. In March 2019, Google was fined € 1.49 billion for violating competition standards when advertising on the Internet and highlighting it when searching. In August 2019, European recruiting websites accused Google of anticompetitive behavior due to the unfair display of vacancies in the search.

source: jumpshot.com