Online search is growing like never before, with the number of searches conducted increasing by 39 percent in the U.S, across roughly 60 search engines year-over-year in January 2006, reports Nielsen/NetRatings.

Nearly 5.7 billion searches were carried out in January compared with 4 billion searches in January 2005, the highest growth to date. From December 2005 to January 2006 the number of online searches performed accelerated 12 percent from 5.07 billion.

Table 1. Online Search: Jan 2005 - Jan 2006 (U.S)

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Mega View Search, March 2006

“Web users are conducting more searches not because they can’t find what they’re looking for, but because search as a utility has become deeply ingrained into people’s everyday lives,” says Ken Cassar, chief analyst, Nielsen/NetRatings.

Google continues to lead the way in online search, accounting for 48.2 percent of the share of searches, followed by Yahoo! with 22.2 percent and MSN at 11 percent. Both Google and Yahoo! rose by a point from the previous year, whilst MSN has dropped slightly.

Table 2. Search Share Rankings (U.S)

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Mega View Search, March 2006