comScore, Inc. released a study of the global search market showing that more than 113 billion searches were conducted in July 2009, representing a 41-percent increase versus year ago.

Google Sites attracted significantly more searches than any other engine with 76.7 billion searches conducted, or 67.5 percent market share. Yahoo! Sites ranked second worldwide with 8.9 billion searches (7.8 percent share), followed closely by Chinese search engine Baidu with 8 billion searches (7.0 percent share). Most of the top search properties worldwide experienced significant growth in search query volume versus last year, with Russian search engine Yandex growing at the fastest rate (94 percent) among the top ten.

Europe Accounts for Most Searches, but Latin America Highest in Searches per Searcher

The dynamics of search behavior vary considerably across different parts of the world. Among the five global regions, Europe accounted for the highest share of searches at 32.1 percent, followed by Asia Pacific (30.8 percent) and North America (22.1 percent). Notably, Latin America exhibited the heaviest search behavior per person with an average of 13 search usage days in July and 130 searches per searcher. Europe had the second highest overall search volume per person (117 searches per searcher) while North America exhibited the second heaviest frequency (12.5 search usage days per searcher).