On Thursday, Nielsen//NetRatings reported that the total number of searches in the U.S. conducted across approximately 60 search engines grew 55 percent year-over-year to nearly 5.1 billion searches in December 2005.

There were 3.3 billion searches conducted via search engines in December 2004. While the number of searches conducted online swelled, the number of people connecting to the Internet rose a mere three percent to 207 million people in the U.S.

"The double-digit increase in online search activity marks a significant milestone in the evolution of Internet consumer behavior," said Ken Cassar, senior director of analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Online search is the primary tool most people rely on to do everyday research."

Growth in Total Searches, Dec 2004 vs. 2005 (U.S.)

Dec-04 Searches (000)	Dec-05 Searches (000)	Percent Change
3,279,770	5,069,377	55%

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search, February 2006

Google rose nearly six percentage points to garner a 49 percent share of all searches in December 2005 from a year prior. Yahoo! Search and MSN Search experienced slight declines in their search share points.

Top 3 Percentage Point Changes in Search Share Rankings (U.S.)

Search Engine	Dec-04 Search Share	Dec-05 Search Share	Change in Percentage Points
Google Search	43.1%	48.8%	5.7
Yahoo! Search	21.7%	21.4%	-0.3
MSN Search	14.0%	10.9%	-3.1

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search, February 2006

The top three search engines all experienced double-digit growth year-over-year in December 2005.

Google Search grew 75 percent to nearly 2.5 billion searches; Yahoo! Search rose 53 percent to nearly 1.1 billion searches, and MSN Search increased 20 percent to 553 million searches.

Top 3 Search Engines' Growth in Searches (U.S.)

Search Engine	Dec-04 Searches (000)	Dec-05 Search (000)	Growth (%)
Google Search	1,414,778	2,475,895	75%
Yahoo! Search	711,857	1,085,918	53%
MSN Search	460,377	553,476	20%

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search, February 2006