Yahoo Attracts Younger Users, Google Has Bigger Spenders

By Mike Sachoff - Fri, 02/15/2008 - 15:19

18-24 year olds prefer Yahoo

Research firm Hitwise has put together an analysis that looks at the demographics that Yahoo Search attracts compared to the audience that Google draws for search by age group.

According to Heather Hopkins of Hitwise Yahoo Search attracts a younger audience than Google. In the 18-24 year old category Yahoo received 19.33 percent of visits compared to the same demographic for Google, which received 17.91 percent.

In the 25-34 year old category Yahoo again captured a higher percentage of visitors with 23.13 percent compare to Google, which grabbed 20.37 percent.

When looking at the 45-54 year old group the results are the opposite. Google receives 20.07 percent of visitors in the 45-54 year old group while Yahoo in the same age group pulls in 17.97 percent of visits. The same thing is true in the 55 and over age group. Google draws 18.72 percent of visitors while Yahoo receives 17.23 percent.

When it comes to spending online Hopkins concludes, "The groups over-indexed on Google.com relative to the online population - are those that are among the most likely to have spent more than $500 online. This indicates that Google users are more likely to be big online spenders."

Source: Hitwise.com

News Tags: Search, Yahoo, Google, Hitwise

About the author:
Mike is a staff writer for WebProNews.

13 Comments

By Hemroids (WPN reader) - Thu, 02/05/2009 - 11:46

So, Google is smarter

So, the monetization power of Google is stronger than Yahoo, and that is one the reasons why Google is succeeding while Yahoo is failing. It is the difference between quality and quantity.

By hemroids.us (WPN reader) - Sat, 12/06/2008 - 12:33

Yahoo Attracts Younger Users

So who's right?

By Home Remedies (WPN reader) - Fri, 10/17/2008 - 22:42

Good to hear

This is a good thing to hear, since it is nice to have the data on other search engines other than simply Google.com

By puppies for sale (WPN reader) - Mon, 09/15/2008 - 02:22

Better sales conversion

I have also found that for some product types Yahoo converts more sales per 100 visitors than Google.

By hemroids (WPN reader) - Mon, 06/23/2008 - 18:18

Accurate numbers

These numbers were accurate, and have slipped slightly today. Yahoo today holds about an 18% marketing share and traditionally does appeal more to 18-25 year olds than Google.com does.

However, the 18-25 age group is less likely to purcahse an item online for most businesses, and therefore this traffic is almost moot point.

By holmpage (WPN reader) - Tue, 02/19/2008 - 12:38

Faulty verbal description of results

Your verbal description of the results is off. The graphs show that 19.33% of Yahoo! users are age 18-24, while 17.91% of Google users are age 18-24. It does not discuss the relative use of Google vs. Yahoo!, which as we all know is overwhelmingly in Google's favour. It does show that the overall profile of Yahoo! visitors is somewhat younger.

This data would be of interest to sites targeting young people who might want to put a bit more into their SEO efforts for Yahoo! than otherwise, albeit knowing that the majority of visitors will still come via Google.

By Anthony (WPN reader) - Mon, 02/18/2008 - 11:37

It really doesn't matter

I mange analytics for about 30 sites ranging from small businesses and musicians to large enterprises. Yahoo consitently accounts for less than 2% of site visits. In practical terms the largest site I manage receives > 230,000 visits a month from google (circa 89%) compared to <5000 visits from Yahoo. Infact Yahoo is beaten into third place by AOL on several of the websites.

Basically the stat my be accurate but it's of no real consqence to anybody when 75 to 90% of search engine traffic comes from Google.

By Zac (WPN reader) - Mon, 02/18/2008 - 10:12

Dodgy stats

I also found her conclusions were off the mark. I wrote a different interpretation at Yahoo and Google - who has the youngest audience?.

By Guest (WPN reader) - Sun, 02/17/2008 - 22:25

Its a PROPAGANDA article for

Its a PROPAGANDA article for yahoo. I constantly monitor many of our websites and discuss with many industry experts on a regular basis. Yahoo consistently brings in less than 30 % of traffic among all demographics. I dont know which planet this moron is talking about.

By nishu (WPN reader) - Sun, 02/17/2008 - 18:49

wiered

I have never seen such a comparision and such a misleading headline and interpretation.

The statistics simply means that yahoo have more young people using its search engine than old ones. It simply shouldnt be compared with any other search engine.

For comparisions you must use asolute data not relative percentages. I wonder if all webmasters are SO good at interpreting statistics.

By Robert (WPN reader) - Sun, 02/17/2008 - 15:58

Marketing Target

Yes, my marketing target is a 54 year old shopaholic grandmother with a fattenened bank account seeking to be dressed to the nines and wrinkle and bulge free. Go where the money is, and that spells Google!

By Dodgypress (WPN reader) - Sun, 02/17/2008 - 08:32

Verifiable Study

Can Any One Else Validate this Stat....???

Pardon the cynicism in my tone...

By Guest (WPN reader) - Sun, 02/17/2008 - 11:29

study results

The numbers are surprising to me given the traffic source numbers for a couple of our sites too. Yahoo! organic search traffic brings in less than 25% of all traffic compared to 75% for Google.