U.S. Search Engine Report: Q4 2009

Yesterday, we released our Q4 2009 State of Search Report that covers trends for the sector. Highlights from the  quarter include:

• Both sequential Quarter on Quarter (QoQ) and Year on Year (YoY) growth for Search was up 6%.    
• Spend in the retail sector grew 17% YoY and 46% QoQ.
• Search ad impression volumes that result from retail queries spiked 90% YoY and built on four quarters of positive sequential growth.
• Google’s share of clicks rose to 74.4% and reversed a downward trend in share since the launch of Bing.    
• Yahoo! was the biggest loser in paid click share giving up a full 3.4% since Q3, moving from 24.4% to 21%.    
• Bing held steady at 4.6% in Q4 vs. 4.7% in Q3.
• After a strong Q4 and continued recovery in the overall economy, we expect 15-20% in SEM spend growth for the full year of 2010.

Still want more stats and analysis? You can download the full report here.