Did Google really lose search market share to Microsoft Bing in April?

Update May 5. Statcounter revised its data showing that Google took a massive hit to its search market share in April while Microsoft Bing and Yahoo made ludicrous gains. See Search Engine Land’s follow-up story: Google’s huge search market share loss wasn’t real: Data revised

Update May 3. Statcounter has added a pop-up to its chart with this message:

• “We are reviewing the search data for April 2024”

Original story

Statcounter has updated its search engine market share stats for April – and the results are shocking. If they’re true. I’m doubtful – but hoping Statcounter will confirm whether these numbers are indeed accurate.

By the numbers. Google’s U.S. search market share in the U.S. fell to 77.52% in April, down from 86.94% in March and down from 88.8% in April 2023. Meanwhile:

• Microsoft Bing grew to 13.05% in April, up from 8.04% in March.
• Yahoo (!) grew to 7.3%, up from 2.48% in March.

See why I’m skeptical yet? How are Microsoft Bing and Yahoo growing that much in one month?

But wait, there’s more.

Google’s global search engine market share dropped from 91.38% in March to 86.99% in April. Meanwhile:

• Microsoft Bing grew to 5.8% in April, up from 3.35% in March.
• Yahoo grew to 3.06% in April, up from 1.1% in March.

There are other unexplainable swings – some bigger than others – found in other regions as well, based on Statcounter’s data.

But. Before you start cheering, the data seems suspect. Some are expecting Statcounter to “correct” these figures because these sorts of big swings seem impossible and unprecedented.

About the data. How does Statcounter get this data? According to its About page:

Stats are based on aggregate data collected by Statcounter on a sample exceeding 5 billion pageviews per month collected from across the Statcounter network of more than 1.5 million websites. Stats are updated and made available every day, however are subject to quality assurance testing and revision for 45 days from publication.

Based on this explanation, it’s entirely possible that at some point in the next 45 days Statcounter’s search market share data could change.

Why we care. My first thought after seeing these numbers was: they seem wrong. User behavior doesn’t change this rapidly. While SEOs and others have been heavily critical of Google over the past few years, often with good reason, I’ve never seen market share figures swing like this in one month unless there was a change to how the data was collected or there is some sort of issue with the data.

What Statcounter is saying. I’ve emailed the company to get some insight into whether these numbers are accurate. I’m told their staff is “checking things out.”