Google Dominates the U.S. Mobile Organic Search Visits in Q2
Google shows relative strength in mobile where it produced more organic search visits than Yahoo and Bing in Q2 2015.
As search traffic continues to shift toward mobile devices, Google is taking more total organic search share, according to Merkle-owned digital agency RKG.
The company’s Q2 digital marketing report shows that organic search visit growth has improved in recent quarters as paid search click growth has slowed. Total organic search visits rose 12 percent year-over-year in Q2 2015, with smartphones producing the vast majority of organic search visit gains.
Google has a relative strength in mobile, having generated 89 percent of mobile organic search visits in Q2. In comparison, Yahoo represented 7.1 percent of overall mobile organic search visits, while Bing produced just 4.1 percent.
Although mobile devices now represent more than half of Google searches, advertisers are not yet ready to spend as much on mobile traffic as they do on desktop, according to the report. RKG data found that phone and tablets produced 43 percent of Google search ad clicks in Q2 2015, which is below the 47 percent share of Google organic search visits.
Of course, organic search and social sharing are closely related. Mobile devices generated 61 percent of sites’ social media visits because Facebook pushed out fixes for iOS and Android to reduce the amount of traffic that did not pass a referrer to site owners.
A closer look at different social media platforms shows that Facebook generated around two-thirds of social media-driven site visits in Q2 2015, up 9 percent from the previous year. While Pinterest generated an average of 18 percent of social site visits, the platform often produced a higher share for retailers making concerted efforts to leverage the site.