Total Search Queries Are Up For Facebook And Down For Google
The number of search queries that users made on Facebook increased last month — not so surprising until you consider that it was one of only four sites that comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) tracked that showed gains in queries month to month. The others included YouTube and Craigslist. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and all the major search engines saw declines. The trend reinforces why Facebook is testing a major expansion of its search engine that will see it sifting status updates, notes, and links, in addition to just user names and groups.
I am failing to see why Facebook is the lead in this story. Craigslist had a much larger increase and further underlines the impending demise of the traditional newspaper and Youtube had the same level of increase with much greater volume which could be signifying that more people are looking for information or answers to queries in a visual manner. Facebook's increase in queries is most likely attributed to more people coming onto the site and searching for their friends. I doubt very few people are using it to find much else.
AJ,
Good points.
We actually ran a story a bit ago on the phenomenal growth in Craigslist traffic recently, which is likely driving much of the increase in search queries there (http://paidcontent.org/article/419-economy-drives-traffic-to-classifieds-sites-craigslist-dominates/).
I think, however, that the Facebook growth is interesting since they are on the verge of revamping their search engine so it can do more than just find friends — and the data indicates it already has momentum going in its favor.
– Joe Tartakoff, paidContent