* Search Engine Stats. - Searches Per Day

Google & partners 152 million
Yahoo 60 million
MSN 28 million
Ask 13 million
Others 6 million

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* Search Engine Index Size (pages)

*Google 1.6 billion (see below, now 14.4 billion)
*MSN 4 billion
*Yahoo 19.2 billion
*Alta Vista 0.5 billion
*Northern Light 0.4 billion
(These are claimed figures, and should be taken with a pinch of salt!, especially Yahoo's)


When AltaVista appeared in 1995, it was easily the largest around

From 1997 to the end of 1998, AltaVista and Inktomi were the two heavyweights

By 1999, the battle to be top dog was between AltaVista, Fast, and Northern Light

By 2000, FAST announced it had broken the 300 million-page barrier, making it the biggest search engine in the world. Later that year AltaVista also became a member of the 300 million-page club.

Google waiting in the wings, slaughtered all in the summer of 2000 breaking the 500 million page barrier.

In the summer of 2001, Google set a new record, 1 billion documents indexed.

By the summer of 2002, Google broke its own record once again, with over1.6 billion documents indexed.

*Google's search engine now spans 4.28 billion Web pages, up from 3.3
billion pages earlier this week. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company also said it has enlarged its index of Web images to 880 million, up from slightly more than 400 million.
(22 Feb 2004)

* Now Google Claims:
November 2004 - Over 14 billion documents/pages indexed.

This would appear to be true, a simple search for "the" without the quotes will normally show 14.4 billion results

Much is made of "Index Size" and in reality nothing more than ego trips, especially in latter SE Internet Wars, and I have to say Google and Yahoo in particular; after all, most people never venture past the first 1-3 of results pages, so in effect if a SE cannot come up with good results for a said search query, within the first 3-pages of results, the rest are are a waste.

* Of all Internet users

E-mail is the most popular activity, with 85% checking each day

60% of Internet users search the web each day

50% look for product information each day

55% use multiple keywords when searching

50% who purchased at an online store arrived via search engines

35% type the product name into the search box

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* Directory Size

Directories differ from search engines because humans edit them, and websites are organized by category.

Open Directory 2.7million links

The Open Directory receives over 300 site submissions per hour