While much of the news lately has been about how people are buying and using desktop computers less and less in the last several years, a new report from comScore has found that the search activity is actually up 12% year over year on desktops. This is a significant rebound for what was a struggling market. Both Google and Bing are seeing this increase in the total number of desktop searches.
In June there were an estimated 19.2 Billion core searches from desktops last month, marking the fourth month in a row where double-digit year over year growth was seen. Whether or not this can continue is the big question both marketers and the search engines need to be asking themselves. With PC sales still plummeting due to the popularity of tablets and smartphones it seems inevitable that these search numbers will eventually begin to slow and then reverse course.
While the report does not speculate on what is causing the big turnaround for desktop searches, it may be that people are starting to get tired of using their tablets for everything. Tablets are an essential part of people’s day now, but some believe that users are realizing that they aren’t the right choice for every task. For many it is more convenient to simply walk over to the desktop computer to type in a quick search on the keyboard rather than use their tablet’s touch screen. At this point there is no way to tell what exactly is causing the turnaround, but there will undoubtedly be surveys and reports on this in the future.
What affect this will have for marketers who have been moving much of their advertising budgets toward mobile devices has yet to be seen. If the trend back toward desktop based searches continues it could call for a readjustment of the way marketers are advertising.
The same report also found that Google’s market share has remained steady at 66.7%, Bing picked up .5% to bring them to 17.9% of searches. Bing’s gain seems to be at the expense of Yahoo, which lost the same .5% bringing them to 11.4% of the total searches.
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