The percentage of users who use search engines has increased from about one-third of all users in 2002, to just under half (49%) in 2008, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Search has become more popular than other online activities, such as checking news, weather or other information on a typical day.

For the majority of Internet users an average day includes using email (60% of Internet users), general searches (49%) and news reading (39%).

Those using search engines on an average day are more likely to be socially upscale, with at least some college education and incomes over $50,000 per year. They are more likely to be Internet users with at least six years of online experience and to have a fast Internet connection in their homes. Younger Internet users are more likely than older users to search on a typical day. Men are more likely than women to search on an average day.

Sixty-six percent of searchers are college graduates, 49 percent have some college and 32 percent are high school graduates or less.

Internet users living in higher-income households are more likely to use search on a typical day. Sixty-two percent earn more than $75,000 per year, 56 percent fall in the $50,000 to $74,999 range, 34 percent are in the $30,000 to $49,999 category and 36 percent are in the under $30,000 range.

Those who use broadband connection at home are significantly more likely than those who use dial-up to have ever tried using search engines. Fifty-eight percent of broadband users have tried a search engine and 26 percent of dial-up users have done the same.

When it comes to age, younger Internet users are more likely to search on an average day. Fifty-five percent of 18 to 29 year olds search on a typical day, 54 percent of 30 to 49 year olds, 40 percent of 50 to 64 year olds and 27 percent of 65 year olds and over.

“One likely reason is that users can now expect to find a high-performing, site-specific
search engine on just about every content-rich website that is worth its salt,” according to the Pew report.

“With a growing mass of web content from blogs, news sites, image and video archives, personal websites, and more, internet users have an option to turn not only to the major search engines, but also to search engines on individual sites, as vehicles to reach the
information they are looking for.”

This entry was posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 9:08 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.