

Compete Says Bing’s Total U.S. Market Share Grew To 29% In November - cwan
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/03/compete-says-bings-total-u-s-market-share-grew-to-29-in-november/

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daniel-cussen
This speaks more poorly of Compete than it speaks well of Bing.

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w1ntermute
I don't understand. Is there something wrong with their methodology?

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Travis
There are several issues with their methodologies. Basically, they measure
data from toolbar installs, as well as some data sharing/sampling agreements
with ISPs and other websites.

Most criticisms center around the fact that it is well documented that data
from compete frequently doesn't match (or come close to matching) data in
server logs. Because of the methodology of collection, the data has a tendency
to be skewed. Plus, it's difficult to figure out exactly why server logs show
such different data than compete, so it gives a not-too-trustworthy feel to
many webmasters.

In addition, there's a potential conflict of interest -- if you sign up for
their paid service, your site will get an analytics tracking cookie. From what
I've read, people rarely see their rank drop after signing up for the
analytics service. Gives the whole thing the feel of payola.

That said, similar problems exist with all the analytics type services. None
are perfect, best bet is to poll a few of them and not take the numbers too
seriously (look for trends, not milestones).

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jdp23
Bing traffic is up 52% year-to-year, Yahoo's up 15%, and Google's down almost
3%.

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bediger
How much of this growth derives from uptake of IE 8 or 9, whichever comes
standard with Windows 7? I bet there's a direct correlation.

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w1ntermute
Not sure what you mean. Previous versions of IE used MSN or Windows Live
Search as their homepages, which now redirect all searches to Bing.

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seanalltogether
Techcrunch should show how much of their own traffic comes from google vs bing
now. I would guess they are ~90% of search referals.

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jggube
I take no stock in Compete stats. It grossly miscalculates traffic statistics.

Here's an example: [http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-
our-...](http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-our-
traffic.html)

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codeup
The table titled "The US web search market share and volume" doesn't look
convincing. The share for 2010 only shows October and November. How did
Bing/Yahoo perform before?

