WebProNews

Nielsen/NetRatings released the second quarter statistics for the number of searches launched at all the major search engines. AOL and Ask Jeeves both enjoyed double digit growth, but remain pebbles in the search ocean.

Ask.com showed a 16 percent increase in the number of search queries from the first quarter with a jump of 34 million searches. Similarly, searches on AOL spiked by 15 percent, adding over 83 million queries to its first quarter report.

While that is solid and impressive growth, both search engines have a long way to go if they want to compete Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.

Though Google only showed a six percent increase, that percentage reflects a total 351 million new searches, ten times the number of queries posted on Ask and four times the number on AOL. Google is, by leaps, king of the search world, boasting 6 billion queries in the second quarter and a 47 percent market share.

Comparatively, AOL ushered 646 million queries and Ask handled 250 million, claiming 5 percent and 2 percent of the market respectively.

Yahoo!, while still producing less than half of Google's traffic at nearly 2.8 billion queries for a 22 percent share, may have the most room to boast, producing a 9 percent increase for the second quarter.

MSN, in contrast, was the only search engine of the top five to show a decline in usage. Search queries on MSN plummeted by 4 percent, or 69 million searches.

WebProNews' Chris Richardson suggests that image searches may be driving a good portion of the growth for four of the search engines, while helping to curb losses for MSN. He says this illustrates the importance of vertical searches and adding new features.

Jason L. Miller is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.