Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | rand@moz.com
An Inside the Numbers Look
at Google in 2017
What Has Google
Been Up To?
Breaking Into Job Listings
Breaking Into Reservations
Breaking Into Cultural Content
Disintermediating Lists
Penalizing vs. Ignoring Spam
Facing their 1st Real Threat in Years
Losing their First Big Case vs. the EU
Facing Potential
Regulation of
Results in
Canada
Paying Professors to Have Their Back
But Google is Still the
Unquestionable Behemoth
Where Do People Search?
Breakdown of Searches
on Major Web Properties
October 2016
Breakdown of Searches
on Major Web Properties
May 2017
GoogleCore
Oct2016 May2017
GoogleImages
Yahoo
Bing
GoogleMaps
Amazon
Facebook
Gained/Lost
58.9%
27.7%
2.6%
2.3%
2.2%
1.9%
0.7%
YouTube 3.8%
64.8%
21.8%
2.4%
2.4%
1.2%
2.3%
1.5%
3.6%
+5.9
-5.9
-0.2
+0.1
-1.0
+0.4
+0.8
-0.2
GoogleCore
Oct2016 May2017
GoogleImages
Yahoo
Bing
GoogleMaps
Amazon
Facebook
Gained/Lost
58.9%
27.7%
2.6%
2.3%
2.2%
1.9%
0.7%
YouTube 3.8%
64.8%
21.8%
2.4%
2.4%
1.2%
2.3%
1.5%
3.6%
+5.9
-5.9
-0.2
+0.1
-1.0
+0.4
+0.8
-0.2
We think this is
Halloween
GoogleCore
Oct2016 May2017
GoogleImages
Yahoo
Bing
GoogleMaps
Amazon
Facebook
Gained/Lost
58.9%
27.7%
2.6%
2.3%
2.2%
1.9%
0.7%
YouTube 3.8%
64.8%
21.8%
2.4%
2.4%
1.2%
2.3%
1.5%
3.6%
+5.9
-5.9
-0.2
+0.1
-1.0
+0.4
+0.8
-0.2This is compensated for by a rise in web
search clicks to local results
GoogleCore
Oct2016 May2017
GoogleImages
Yahoo
Bing
GoogleMaps
Amazon
Facebook
Gained/Lost
58.9%
27.7%
2.6%
2.3%
2.2%
1.9%
0.7%
YouTube 3.8%
64.8%
21.8%
2.4%
2.4%
1.2%
2.3%
1.5%
3.6%
+5.9
-5.9
-0.2
+0.1
-1.0
+0.4
+0.8
-0.2
I’m keeping an eye on these two
Google’s Growth
So far, 2017 is trending ~10-15% higher than 2016, not including voice or Apple devices
Total Searchers vs. Active Searchers
United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Average
Searches/Month
%ofSearchersw/10+
Searches/Month
103-119
120-139
120-135
~39%
~40%
~41%
Google CTR Breakdown
Relatively flat excluding seasonality = SEO not being cannibalized by Google’s own results
What are the Web’s Top
Traffic Referrers?
Google.com
Oct2016 May2017
Facebook.com
Reddit.com
YouTube.com
Imgur.com
Bing.com
Wikipedia.org
Gained/Lost
59.2%
6.5%
5.4%
4.5%
2.2%
2.2%
1.4%
Yahoo.com 6.0%
62.6%
5.9%
4.1%
4.7%
1.5%
2.1%
1.4%
5.0%
+3.4%
-0.6%
-1.3%
+0.2%
-0.6%
-0.1%
+0%
-1.0%
Amazon.com 1.3% 1.4% +0.1%
Google.com
Oct2016 May2017
Facebook.com
Reddit.com
YouTube.com
Imgur.com
Bing.com
Wikipedia.org
Gained/Lost
59.2%
6.5%
5.4%
4.5%
2.2%
2.2%
1.4%
Yahoo.com 6.0%
62.6%
5.9%
4.1%
4.7%
1.5%
2.1%
1.4%
5.0%
+3.4%
-0.6%
-1.3%
+0.2%
-0.6%
-0.1%
+0%
-1.0%
Amazon.com 1.3% 1.4% +0.1%
This is when Reddit stopped using
Imgur for all its image hosting
Google.com
Oct2016 May2017
Facebook.com
Reddit.com
YouTube.com
Imgur.com
Bing.com
Wikipedia.org
Gained/Lost
59.2%
6.5%
5.4%
4.5%
2.2%
2.2%
1.4%
Yahoo.com 6.0%
62.6%
5.9%
4.1%
4.7%
1.5%
2.1%
1.4%
5.0%
+3.4%
-0.6%
-1.3%
+0.2%
-0.6%
-0.1%
+0%
-1.0%
Amazon.com 1.3% 1.4% +0.1%
In 7 months, Google gained
more share than all but the
top 5 even have 
Top 10 11-100 101-1K 1K-10K 10K+
Google 22.2% 14.9% 18.0% 18.7% 26.2%
Facebook 42.7% 17.7% 15.3% 12.9% 11.3%
Yahoo 39.2% 15.8% 15.6% 14.0% 15.4%
Reddit 75.2% 11.0% 7.2% 4.4% 2.2%
Youtube 80.1% 7.2% 5.4% 4.1% 3.2%
Not All Referrers Send Traffic Equally
(data below from May 2017)
Top 10 11-100 101-1K 1K-10K 10K+
Google 22.2% 14.9% 18.0% 18.7% 26.2%
Facebook 42.7% 17.7% 15.3% 12.9% 11.3%
Yahoo 39.2% 15.8% 15.6% 14.0% 15.4%
Reddit 75.2% 11.0% 7.2% 4.4% 2.2%
Youtube 80.1% 7.2% 5.4% 4.1% 3.2%
Not All Referrers Send Traffic Equally
(data below from May 2017)
Google distributes traffic pretty evenly
Top 10 11-100 101-1K 1K-10K 10K+
Google 22.2% 14.9% 18.0% 18.7% 26.2%
Facebook 42.7% 17.7% 15.3% 12.9% 11.3%
Yahoo 39.2% 15.8% 15.6% 14.0% 15.4%
Reddit 75.2% 11.0% 7.2% 4.4% 2.2%
Youtube 80.1% 7.2% 5.4% 4.1% 3.2%
Not All Referrers Send Traffic Equally
(data below from May 2017)
Facebook is strongly biased to the top
Top 10 11-100 101-1K 1K-10K 10K+
Google 22.2% 14.9% 18.0% 18.7% 26.2%
Facebook 42.7% 17.7% 15.3% 12.9% 11.3%
Yahoo 39.2% 15.8% 15.6% 14.0% 15.4%
Reddit 75.2% 11.0% 7.2% 4.4% 2.2%
Youtube 80.1% 7.2% 5.4% 4.1% 3.2%
Not All Referrers Send Traffic Equally
(data below from May 2017)
Reddit & YouTube even more so
Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | rand@moz.com
Watch for More Data on the Moz Blog Soon!

Inside Google's Numbers in 2017