37 Google Search Statistics You Should Know in 2024

Google. Yours truly. We’ve both come a long way since 1999. Back then it took Google a month to crawl and index 50 million pages. It took me at least half an hour to crawl home after a big night out. By 2012, Google was doing its thing in less than a minute, and I’ve come to appreciate toning it down on the weekend. So let’s take a look at some Google search statistics and see how they’re doing in 2019. Let’s start with some of the major ones first. I’m doing well, by the way, thanks for asking!

Now that you’ve seen some of our most important Google search stats, let’s break down the rest, shall we? Below you can find them organized in several categories - general statistics about Google, search-related statistics on Google, click-through stats, popular search term stats, mobile search stats and finally a few fun facts and stats about Google as a company.

General Google Statistics

1. Google is the world’s most used search engine with an 88.61% market share as of July 2019.

(Statista)

When it comes to the search engine market share, Google has the highest percentage in India with 94.39%. Brazil has a market share of 93.78%, and Spain, 90.67%.

In the United States, around 94% of all desktop searches are made on various Google platforms. Bing, on the other hand, accounts for about 2.72% of the global market, Baidu makes up about 0.74%.

2. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has a market value of $741 billion as of June 2019.

(Statista)

Alphabet ranks fourth in market capitalization worldwide, ahead of Facebook’s $495 billion, but behind Apple’s $875 billion, Amazon’s $888 billion and Microsoft’s $1007 billion. Just to put things into perspective, Baidu, the company that owns one of the most popular search engines in China, is only 19th in the rankings, with a market value of $38 billion dollars.

3. Google-owned properties account for 94% of all desktop searches in the United States.

(SparkToro) (Jumpshot)

According to SparkToro and Jumpshot’s latest search statistics, Google has an unassailable position over the desktop search market. Jumpshot collected data from over 230 billion desktop browser-based searches and found that Google search traffic accounts for nearly all of it. Namely, 69.35% are generated by Google searches, 20.45% by Google image search queries, 2.98% by YouTube, and 0.75% of all searches are done on Google Maps. To illustrate how badly the competition is outclassed, Bing is the only representative of the other top search engines to even make the list, with a measly 1.18% market share in this category. DuckDuckGo, an independent, privacy-focused search engine, accounts for around 0.40% of all desktop searches in the United States.

4. Google accounts for 95% of all organic and 92% of organic mobile search-engine visits in the United States.

(Statista)

Here are two more Google statistics to illustrate their dominance in the US market. Organic visits are clicks made by visitors from the search results page in order to visit non-advertised websites. According to Statista’s statistics on Google searches, 92% of all organic visits from desktop browsers and 95% from mobile ones happen on Google-owned search engines. Bing has a 4% share overall (1.6% on mobile devices) and Yahoo has a 3% (2.3% on mobile).

5. Google earned $116.32 billion in ad revenue during 2018.

(Statista)

It is no secret that the company makes most of its revenue through advertising. In 2001, the company earned just $0.07 billion. By 2011 the number was $36.53, and in 2017 it reached $95.38. Google trends in 2019 so far indicate that the growth will continue in the future as well. The majority of that revenue comes from Google owned properties (70.7%), while 14.7% come from ad revenues from their network-members properties and 14.6% from other sources.

Google Search statistics

6. Google Search is available in 150 languages and 190 countries.

(Google)

This comes straight from the source - Google statistics on searches, from their 20 year newsletter. The search once serviced only a handful of countries and had around 10 languages available. These days, searches on Google are localized around the globe, covering most major languages. Google added seven different regional dialects in India alone so far in 2019, so there’s no indication that they’re slowing down.

7. Google receives around 3.5 billion searches per day globally.

(Internet Live Stats)

If you were wondering how many Google searches are made per day in 2019, the number varies between 3.2 and 3.7 billion most of the time. It translates to around 1.2 trillion searches per year or forty thousand searches per second. For reference, in 2001 the number was around 27 billion per year, a number that would take just over a week to reach according to daily search trends in 2019. When the search engine was initially launched, it could handle only around ten thousand Google searches per day. By the following year, that number grew to 3.5 million, and look at where we are today!

8. Google Search volume grows by 10% every year.

(Internet Live Stats)

When it comes to web searches, Google has shown a steady growth trend in the past twenty years. However, it has definitely shown signs of slowing down and normalizing during the past decade. For example, we’ve seen the search volume skyrocket from 141 billion queries a year in 2005 to 998 billion in 2010. In the nine years since then, it has only grown to around 1.2 trillion, showing that while there is some growth potential still out there, we’re slowly reaching a plateau. Internet Live Stats provides real time Google search statistics so you can see just how many people search for something on Google every second.

9. Google considers over 200 factors before delivering search results.

(Backlinko)

Are you interested in Google search statistics for business purposes? Wondering how to get your site within the top searches on Google? Having a well-respected site (domain authority) and producing quality content goes a long way. Latent Semantic Indexing keywords are another important consideration. These are the keywords that are conceptually related to the search topic. They give Google an indication that your webpage understands the user’s search intent, and has the content that they are looking for.

There is a myriad of other factors, but some of the more obvious ones are: mobile-device optimization, good readability and content relevance. Google recognizes not only keyword relevance but how well the topic you are writing about is covered, how much duplication there is on your page and whether or not the content is easy to read and understand. Nevertheless, excellent content can only take you so far, and good link building and outreach are key to getting your site well-positioned on the cut-throat market that is Google’s SERP.

10. Around 15% of all daily searches on Google are completely new queries.

(Google)

According to Google keyword search statistics, 15% of the 3.5 billion average daily searches are completely new queries. That means that every day we get around 525 million new search queries - a staggering number, even if we consider that a lot of them are variations on existing search terms. The vast human knowledge base on the internet is expanding every day, and Google trends are following suit. Inquisitive minds want to know, and Google is here to answer.

11. 27% of all global traffic to Google’s front page comes from the United States.

(Statista)

The majority of Google search traffic is generated from the United States. India comes in second with 8.7% of traffic, which is still nearly double the traffic coming out of Japan (4.6%). China and Brazil come next with 3.6% and 2.8% of traffic respectively. Now, of course search stats on Google are a separate category from the visits to their frontpage, but these numbers are still a pretty good indicator of the state of things.

12. The average US consumer uses three words per search query on Google.

(Moz) (Jumpshot)

According to Jumpshot, nearly 25% of US consumers use between two and four words per search query on mobile devices and around 20% do so on desktops. Google word trends are very similar on desktops and mobile devices, with desktops expectedly having a slightly higher percentage of longer search queries - six or more words. The general takeaway is this - longtail search optimization may not be as effective as you think.

13. Questions account for 8% of search queries on Google in the United States.

(Moz) (Jumpshot)

Nearly 10% of all Google search statistics by keyword are queries worded as questions. These include “who,” “what,” “when,” “why,” and “how,” as well as “is” and “am.” Some examples include: “Is it going to be warmer tomorrow?” and “Am I allowed to carry a gun in public?” Pages that are looking for this kind of traffic are advised to have clearly organized

14. 18% of all search queries in the United States result in changing the search term without making an organic click.

(Moz) (Jumpshot)

Whether the person searching changes their search query manually or clicks on one of Google’s related searches, nearly one in five people generate no organic links on their first Google search results page (SERP). Google statistics on search patterns have clearly been noticed by the company, which has lately been working on expanding its “People also ask” category. Google strives to anticipate user intent even if the users themselves are not entirely sure of it.

The rather high bounce rate on searches is proof that people don’t always get what they want from the top Google searches on their SERP. Or it means that they don’t start their search knowing exactly what they want. Either way, providing options makes sure that consumers stay engaged, and an organic click lost on the first attempt can be converted to one coming from a refined search query.

15. 21% of search queries on Google in the United States leads to multiple clicks on the search results page.

(Moz) (Jumpshot)

According to Jumpshot’s search stats on Google, one in five people in the United States click on multiple results generated by their search query. Google top searches are usually opened in a few different browser tabs so that users can browse several search results at their leisure. Alternatively, many people don’t find what they are looking for on the first or second organic link that they visit, so they go back and try other results.

16. 8% of searches on Google in the United States result in clicking on a link, then pressing back in the browser and choosing another link on the search results page.

(Moz) (Jumpshot)

This behavior is often referred to as pogo-sticking, due to the fact that consumers bounce between the SERP and various other webpages. Top internet searches don’t necessarily provide the answers that people are looking for every time, so those that didn’t have a contingency plan (opening multiple search results in various tabs) often go back to the search results page in order to click on another link.

17. Secured links (96.1%) and the “People Also Ask” panel (90.7%) are the most common elements of Google’s search result pages.

(Moz)

As the Google search statistics from Moz show, HTTPS websites are rapidly becoming the norm. Google encourages more and more web administrators to secure their websites in order to improve their SERP ratings. Almost all trending Google searches also come with a related questions section in the form of a “People Also Ask” panel, located near the top of the search results page. This is Google’s way of helping users find what they are looking for, by providing search queries made by their peers who had a similar search intent. We can also note that the infamous AdWords are fairly prominent on Google’s SERPs as well, with those on top of other search results being present 48.3% of the time and the less intrusive bottom-placed ones accounting for 21.5% of all search results pages on Google.

When it comes to Google search stats on videos and images, they hover close to 25% (24.4% and 23.1% respectively). Knowledge panels and star-based reviews are a fair bit more prominent at 32.9%.

We should remember, though, that those looking for a Google video search usually use the videos tab or YouTube instead. Those who are after images in the search results, simply use the images tab or go directly to the Google Images page.

18. 500 of the world’s largest domains get 38% of their traffic from Google.

(Jumpshot)

As Google acquires more properties and expands its reach into more niches, the “traffic game” gets more interesting. For example, if you were to search for videos on Google, chances are you’ll be directed to YouTube rather than Vimeo or DailyMotion. Google search engine statistics show a trend of slow decline in Google’s search traffic allocated to the most popular domains in the world. For example, the number was 42% in January of 2016. Clearly, Google is playing a balancing game and wants to keep as many customers within the company’s own ecosystem, while not endangering advertising prospects or having to face allegations of monopolization. It will be interesting to see how this trend develops in the coming years, and how many of the world’s largest domains end up part of Google’s ever-growing network.

19. Google has received over 3.4 million URL and 860 thousand personal delist requests since 2014.

(Google Transparency Report)

But what is delisting, exactly? In May 2014, the EU Court of Justice ruled that individuals have the right to ask search engines like Google to delist search queries related to their personal names. According to Google statistics, the majority of the requests are either still being processed or have been denied – only about 43.7% URLs have been delisted so far. The most common factor for NOT delisting pages is what Google refers to as public interest. If the information presented on the pages is deemed as important to the general public, and includes data on public figures such as criminal history, past held offices etc. the URL probably won’t get delisted.

Click-Through Statistics

20. Only 45.25% of all Google searches in the United States result in organic clicks as of June 2019.

(SparkToro) (Jumpshot)

If we add that 4.42% of people click on AdWords-related search results, we can conclude that most Google searches in the United States end with zero organic clicks. (50.33%). Search stats on Google show that about 18% of those end up with the user changing their search query. However, a lot of organic clicks are generated from those modified search queries. According to SparkToro and Jumpshot’s Google search statistics for 2019, Google sends approximately 6% of all search queries and 12% of clicks to its own properties, such as YouTube or Google Maps. Nevertheless, the number of organic clicks is decreasing around the world. Google keeps perfecting it’s SERP formula, but whether that will be enough to draw more organic clicks in the future remains yet to be seen.

21. The first page of Google Search results accounts for 71.33% of all organic clicks on Google.

(Zero Limit Web)

You’ve probably heard it before – if you want to hide a murder, the best place to do so is on the second page of Google’s search results page. According to Zero Limit Web’s search stats, Google generates the majority of its organic clicks through the first five (non-advertising) links on the first page of its search results. These account for 67.60% of all clicks, while those between the sixth and tenth place only draw about 3.73%. People often prefer clicking on the next page and checking the first five results there, instead. Or, clicking on paid ads, of course. So, to summarize – it’s not enough to rank in Google top searches. You ideally want to be in the top three or five results on the first page, which is no easy task at all.

22. The organic click-through rate for the first page of Google’s search results is around 57%.

(Internet Marketing Ninjas)

The first page of search results is the holy grail of organic clicks. However, even there organic clicks are somewhat of a commodity. According to IMN’s Google search stats, 43% of people leave the first page of Google search results without making any organic clicks. Considering how few people actually bother clicking on advertisements or extending their search past the first page, we can conclude that a lot of people simply give up on their search query or change it without making any organic clicks. This aligns with our stats about US consumers, the majority of whom do not generate organic clicks through their initial searches.

23. Branded queries get a higher click-through rate than non-branded ones, especially on the top three search results.

(Internet Marketing Ninjas)

Even though only 4% of people in IMN’s study had queries and impressions related to branded terms, those constituted for around 13% of all organic clicks in the study. As per Google statistics that we’ve had a look at, the numbers are expectedly skewed towards the first two pages. Branded queries on page one achieved a 26.53% click-through rate, compared to 19.3% for non-branded ones. The advantage is even more pronounced on the second page (23.91% vs 10.57%) but drops off significantly starting with page three (9.45% vs 7.54%).

When it comes to Google, the top three searches are where you want your site to be ideally. This is especially true for branded searches, whose top two positions get 25% and 23% click-through rates (CTR) overall. The three best-ranked pages overall also accounted for 99% of all branded organic clicks.

24. People are four times more likely to click on a paid search ad on Google than on any other search engine.

(Clutch)

First off, people have gotten good at recognizing paid advertising. 77% of those interviewed by Clutch stated that they are confident about their ability to recognize paid advertisements. Therefore, in order to be successful, ads need to truly answer people’s search queries and not just show up in a search because they were paid for.

Google is well ahead of other top search engines when it comes to paid-ad clicks. 63% of people in the survey would be likely to click on a paid ad on Google, as opposed to only 15% on Amazon. 9% of people would interact with paid ads on Youtube, and only 6% on Bing.

25. 55% of people who click on Google Search ads prefer them to be text-based.

(Clutch)

According to Google search statistics, most people prefer text-based ads – fitting for a company that made its fortune on text-based searches, isn’t it? We see similar trends relating to user intent on Amazon and YouTube. You guessed it – 50% of people on Amazon prefer product listings or shopping ads, while 36% of people on YouTube prefer video advertisements – just as you’d expect from a site that’s all about video content.

An interesting thing to note about Google advertising is how paid ads are listed on the SERP. By looking at various Google search term statistics we’ve already established that for organic clicks, your website’s rating is its bread and butter. You rank in the top three results ideally, on the first page at worst, or you’re nearly invisible. With paid ads, things are a bit different – they are usually listed horizontally rather than vertically. This means that rankings don’t matter as much, and sometimes ranking “lower” can potentially make you even more visible.

Popular Search Term Statistics

26. Facebook is the most searched keyword on Google with over 2.1 billion monthly searches worldwide as of 2019.

(Mondovo)

The most popular searches on Google are mostly focused on Google-owned properties, with some adult content, Amazon, Hotmail and Facebook sprinkled in for good measure. The latter is by far the most searched word on Google, followed by “YouTube” with 1.68 billion searches per year and “Google” itself with 932 million. Another Google property, “Gmail”, shares the fourth and fifth spots with Microsoft’s “Hotmail” at around 506 million yearly searches for both. Other popular search terms on Google include “xxnx” with 414 million yearly searches, “xvideos” with 338m, “Amazon” with 227m, and finally “xxx” and “translator” (Google Translator) with 226 million yearly searches each.

27. “What is my IP?” is the most Googled question to date with 3.35 million monthly searches worldwide.

(Mondovo)

The second most-searched question on Google is “What time is it?” Apparently 1.8 million people a year find it easier to ask Google than to check their wrist-watch, phone or taskbar. It is followed by “How to register to vote?” with 1.2m searches per year, “How to tie a tie?” with 673 million, and “Can you run it” with 550 million searches every year, on average. Other top 10 Google searches include queries about songs, losing weight, Mothers Day and how many ounces you can find in a cup or a pound.

It’s important to remember that Google’s search engine is the default option selected when entering a query into a browser’s address bar. Therefore, even if you are not actually on Google’s page when performing a search, you can still be contributing to their trending searches.

28. “World Cup” was the most popular search term on Google worldwide in 2018.

(Google)

As Arrigo Sacchi famously said, football is “the most important of the unimportant things in life.” The World Cup only comes around once every four years, so this stat is not all that surprising. What is perhaps a bit more surprising is that, in terms of overall reach, it came on top of the most popular web searches in countries that were not even participating in the event, such as Nepal, Jamaica, Vietnam and Bangladesh. When it comes to the most Googled topics in 2018, according to Google Trends, Avicii was second, followed by Mac Miller, Stan Lee and the smash-hit superhero movie, “Black Panther.”

29. Meghan Markle was the world’s most-searched celebrity in the “People” category on Google in 2018.

(Google)

Celebrities routinely make it on to the most searched lists on Google. They can be searched for under various categories, such as Arts & Entertainment, People & Society and so on. While Mac MIller and Stan Lee were two of the most popular searches on Google in 2018 overall, the “People” category saw more searches for Demi Lovato, Sylvester Stallone, Logan Paul and Khloe Kardashian.The US stats regarding the top Google searches in 2018 were largely the same.

30. “Black Panther” was the most-Googled movie globally in 2018.

(Google)

“Black Panther” cleaned the house in most categories in 2018, including popularity on Google. While “The Avengers: Infinity War” beat it in terms of revenue earned on the market, it was ranked only fourth when it came to the most Googled terms in the Movies category in 2018. In-between the two smash hits were “Deadpool 2” and “Venom”, while “Bohemian Rhapsody” came in fifth on the list of most searched-movies during 2018.

“Black Panther” was also one of the most searched terms on Google in the United States that year. When it comes to movie-related searches, “Incredibles 2” took second place, ahead of “Deadpool 2”, “Avengers: Infinity War” and “A Quiet Place.”

31. “Story of Yanxi Palace” (延禧攻略) and “Altered Carbon” were the most-searched TV shows globally on Google in 2018.

(Google)

The Chinese period drama about 18th century Beijing recorded an incredible 15 billion streams between July and August of 2018. It quickly became a huge hit in Asia, taking the top spot in most popular Google searches when it came to TV shows in 2018. “Altered Carbon” came in second, ahead of another Asian smash-hit, the Thai historical TV series “Love Destiny” (บุพเพสันนิวาส). “Motu Patlu,” the popular Indian animated series was fourth in the worldly rankings. The only other non-Asian TV show in the top five was “Roseanne.” This American series aired its final episode in May of 2018, after exactly twenty years on television.

When it comes to local Google search statistics in 2018, “Roseanne” and “Altered Carbon” ranked first in the United States, followed by “The Haunting of Hill House,” “American Idol,” and “Lost in Space.”

Mobile Search Statistics

32. 62% of all search traffic in the world comes from mobile phones and tablets.

(BrightEdge)

Google word search statistics show that mobile devices have been dominating the market for a while now. Over two-thirds of all search traffic globally is generated via mobile devices. A lot of devices also use Google voice search. What does that tell you? Well, for starters, this means that users are searching for things on the go. But, more importantly, we can see that mobile websites and content that is easily digestable on the go is becoming the industry norm.

33. 64% of Google’s organic search engine visits in the United States originate from mobile devices.

(Statista)

Statista reports that over two-thirds of organic search engine visits on Google come from mobile phones and tablets as of Q3 of 2019. In other words, recent Google searches are dominated by mobile devices.

However, Google is not the most mobile-dominated search engine in the United States – DuckDuckGo just edges it out with 65% of all search results. Yahoo has a 53% mobile share, while only 25% of people who accessed Bing did so from their mobile devices.

34. 76% of all keywords rank websites differently on desktop and mobile devices.

(BrightEdge)

According to BrightEdge’s Google statistics on searches, nearly 80% of all keywords can have completely different page rankings on desktop and mobile devices. When it comes to the 20 top-ranked keywords, things are a bit more uniform and the number drops to around 47%.

Finally, the first page to rank for a domain regarding a search query is different between mobile devices and desktops 32% of the time. That means that nearly half of the 20 top Google searches right now take you to different pages on mobile and desktop devices, and even the very first result differ in one of three search queries on average.

These statistics on Google searches are especially important for companies looking for organic clicks. They need to consider not only the desktop perspective, but realize that searches are increasingly becoming mobile-based. While Google considers over 200 factors when ranking a website, you can be sure that things like mobile UI optimization and usability on mobile devices are going to weigh in more heavily for mobile SERPs.

Fun Google Facts

35. The name “Google” is a play on the word “Googol.”

(Live Science)

Googol is a theoretical concept – a mathematical term used to describe ten to the hundredth power, or one followed by 100 zeroes. It’s a number so absurdly large that it surpasses even the theorized number of hydrogen atoms in the observable universe. It was invented by the nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner in the 1940’s and appealed to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They believed it to be a perfect analogy for their quest to index a nearly unfathomable number of web pages online. Google search traffic these days may not be unlimited, but it certainly has become just as abstractly huge as the number itself.

36. Google internet services use over two billion lines of code.

(Wired)

Rachel Potvin reported the number to be around 2 billion back in 2015, when talking about various Google statistics at an engineering conference in Silicon Valley. We can only speculate that it has grown exponentially ever since. For reference, the average space shuttle has around 40 million lines of code, Large Hadron Collider has around 50 million, and Facebook has just over 60 million lines. Microsoft’s Windows platforms, across all iterations since the 1980’s, still have far less raw code than Google. In other words, it takes a lot more effort than you may think to help people decide where they should get their next cup organic, gluten-free pumpkin latte.

37. The first use of the phrase “to Google something” on TV was in an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

(Digital Wars)

In addition to having a cult following amongst many 90’s kids, “Buffy” also has the honor of being the first instance of using “Google” as a verb on TV.  Although Willow, the famous character on the show, did actually refer to Google, the term became synonymous with searching for something online, in general. Even in instances where other search engines such as Bing are used.

The cultural significance of this event cannot be understated – other top search engines never managed to get associated with searching for things on the internet. Microsoft even tried with paid campaigns to popularize the term “Bing it,” but they never really achieved any measure of success.