comScore Announces Decline of Google’s Global Share; Then Hides in a Hole
Thursday, March 20th, 2008;
-- Andy Beal |
After the fallout from comScore’s recent claims about Google’s paid search traffic–which led to a Wall Street panic–the company’s recent report reeks of insecurity.
The company has released numbers that suggest Google’s global market share slipped from 63/1% to 62.8%, but refuses to reveal the name of the analyst who did the research.
The data from comScore showed Google’s dominance of the worldwide market for Web search dipping to 62.8 percent in February from 63.1 percent the month before, according to an analyst, who declined to be named.
Huh? Where’s the transparency? What does it say about the confidence in its own numbers, when comScore’s too scared to reveal the author of the report? What is comScore afraid of? What’s next? “comScore reports Google’s market share drops but refuses to say by how much.” Crazy!
It’s not all bad news for Google. Its US market share increased from 58.5% in January to 59.2% in February–allegedly.
UPDATE: comScore’s comment suggests the analyst in question is not in fact a comScore analyst after all.
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Category: Google, Research
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March 20th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Maybe Google would have been breaking someones legs.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Maybe the analyst is related to the teacher from Southpark, Miss Chokesondick
March 20th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Andy,
I believe the Reuters article was referring to a Wall Street analyst, not an unnamed comScore analyst. In fact, there is not a comScore “analyst who did the research” as you suggest, but rather the data gets released as part of a syndicated monthly report available to subscribers — the same way that the vast majority of our data get released.
We have publicly released our U.S. search figures, as we do each month (http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2119).
We are certainly not hiding from anything and we have complete confidence in our data. In the future, it would be helpful to check our web site to check our official press releases, or to contact us first, before insinuating that we are not being transparent. We have nothing to hide, so why not just ask us?
Andrew Lipsman
March 20th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
@Andrew - thanks for the clarification.
March 20th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Thanks for that Andrew. Although I preferred my explanation!
March 22nd, 2008 at 11:36 pm
a report like this isn’t exactly helping comscore’s credibility.
and the result? more volatility in Googles stock price.