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is YouTube really the second most used search engine?

by David
11 replies
I've seen a youtube done with animoto that claimed youtube is the second most widely used search engine: not yahoo, not bing but there is a claim that Google is first (we all know this) and Youtube is second.

I've been consulting with small businesses doing the off line gold thing (brick n mortar only) and when I'm in a SEO clients office I observe the employees going to youtube when ever they have slack time.

Where could one find a credible statistic to gauge if the claim that youtube is #2 as a search engine?

compete.com ?

Where can one find a traffic statistic that is trustworthy?
#engine #search #youtube
  • Profile picture of the author jdenc
    MY guess is that YouTube has a lot of searches performed on it but it isn't used per se to find products or services like Google is. So there are lots of people there looking for skiing squirrels for example. The question is can you get those eyes on your clients sites with a video. People are having success doing so based on my reading.
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  • Profile picture of the author InternetSuccess001
    Check Alexa.

    Alexa Top 500 Global Sites

    According to alexa, FACEBOOK is #2. Youtube is #3. Too bad for youtube!
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  • Profile picture of the author Sarah Harvey
    I wouldn't relate youtube to a search engine. People visit the site because it provides entertainment and some interesting information for people. You have to realise something:

    People like to watch TV and movies. So if they can watch other people making complete a**es out of themselves or watch their favourite band perform... it is because it offers entertainment value. Not many people these days like to read an article about their favourite celebrity when they can actually see a video of it. It's just common sense.

    A person can almost go as far as saying that people are just lazy and it doesn't take much to watch a video as opposed to reading. Which is true in a lot of people's cases.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikemac1
    It's from comScore from 2008, but there is not reason to say that things have changed in the last 2 years, BTW, here's the info...

    ComScore’s most U.S. search engine Rankings for August 2008 suggest that YouTube achieves a greater level of search traffic than Yahoo. If you were to consider YouTube’s integrated search a regular search engine, you would have to hand Google the top two spots for search engine traffic. In combination, Google has about four times the search traffic of Yahoo and more than ten times the search traffic of Microsoft’s MSN sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author koncorps
    YouTube is a great source of traffic, I know that for sure.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
    My 2 cents and a half:

    Youtube IS turning into a search engine, a powerful one, cause people are learning that IS the place to SEE special videos.

    By special I mean: how to videos, holiday destination videos, etc.

    I bet some queries have more people going directly to Youtube to search for an answer, then to Google.

    Of course this won't stop people of searching Google for airplane tickets or credit repair BUT for some thousands, millions, billions other keywords... Youtube is going to be king and queen.

    Not facing this as inevitable can be dangerous for your long time presence in IM.

    Fernando
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    • Profile picture of the author Amitywill
      99% of the time if I'm interested in buying something the
      first thing I do is go to google and look for information and
      the second thing I do is go to You Tube to see if there are
      any video reviews.

      I'm guessing a huge amount of other people do this too.

      So yeah I wouldn't be at all surprised if You Tube was the
      second most used search engine.

      Will
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  • Profile picture of the author seobro
    I have found that You tube traffic has very poor conversion. Most of the viewers never turn into buyers and what you want is to make money. It is worse than digg, yes, even worse.
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  • Profile picture of the author ~kev~
    I dont know if I would call youtube a search engine, since it does not search for content outside of itself. But it is a good resource site.

    When I want a review of an item, there are 2 places I go - Amazon, and youtube - and not in that order either. Lets say I want to buy a new backpack or camera, youtube is one of the first places I go, if not "the" first place I go to find real reviews.

    Like this past weekend, there was a video game on sale for 2 days. Before I bought the game, I went to youtube and watched some reviews.

    So yea, from my own personal experience, I think youtube is one of the best resource sites out there.

    Originally Posted by seobro View Post

    I have found that You tube traffic has very poor conversion.
    On my main site, youtube has a bounce rate in the 40% range - which is less then google search traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author numba8
    it can't be the second most used search engine if its not a search engine :p
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