New data released by Hitwise yesterday shows that there is a socio-economic difference between those frequently using Yahoo and those more frequently using Google.
The graph right demonstrates “Online Representation” based on demographic types. The Y axis represents Yahoo, the X axis Google, with the higher the number, the more that particular group of users uses each service. Yahoo is strong in “struggling societies,” “blue collar backbone,” and “remote America,” where as Google obtains higher use in “small town contentment,” “affluent suburbia,” and “upscale America.” The size of each circle represents how many in each group have spent $500+ online.
The differences between the groups aren’t great, but the results do go some way in explaining the Yahoo conundrum. Although a distance second in search, Yahoo has remained the number one traffic destination online ahead of Google, so you’d think with more traffic Yahoo would convert that traffic into similar returns to Google. But alas we know that not to be the case, and that would appear in part to be related to people using Yahoo not spending as much online and being in poorer demographic categories than Google users, providing a lower return per user.
Update: unlike some of the class warriors in our comments, just to reiterate: these figures are not exclusive, ie: lower demographics use Google as well and higher demographics use Yahoo, it simply points out that according to Hitwise there is a weight either way among users of both services. That is an interesting split, both when considering yields per user on each site, and in a broader sense which services appeal to these different groups. There’s nothing discriminatory is pointing out data from a third party, and those suggesting this is some sort of class based conspiracy from TC say more about themselves than this post. All data is good if it helps us understand markets and in this case the user base on two of the largest internet companies there is.
Yahoo = trailer trash
This is a very well though through and well articulated comment. Thank you for blessing us with your insights.
I think the issue is mostly related to non-techies vs techies as opposed to rish vs poor.
I think that many people specially in the US are starting on Y! and then move to Google forever.
Its all useless. Yahooleads on Mobile Software (Yahoo Go..). Photos (Flickr) and mail…(Web 2.0)…And its coming up with new multimedia sites. Why anyone spend anything on google. Its simple “all looks same” pages…Its colorless. Yahoo is colourful. Google is used by techies…(Those who has black and white life) And yahoo is used by more creative people.
:) Long Live yahoo..!!
Not “more creative people” but people who like eye candy more than content.
yahoo Suck Google Rocks! Google is faster has more users all out better than yahoo. you will not find any statistics of yahoos that are better than googles. google is the best search engine and now even the new bing will pass up yahoo. yet none will beat google. google put on terabites upon terabites of memory each and everyday. their data base grows more then the library of congress worth of info each day. google pulls up faster and more results
many times, yahoo is a better engine when it comes to search results then what google can come up with. everytime I search for a particular article or website on google I always get no results or something competly different. but when I search on yahoo with the same keywords I get exactly what I need.
people who stick to one source know nothing.
I always use multiple sources when I research and I consider different search engines as another source.
@4, you are absolutely right.
Three cheers for Yahoo!!!
Its a simple model when you think about it logically.
High earners = Google as its the best search around so it makes sense to use – for those up to speed with the internet its the sensible choice. These same people that make informed choices are generally the higher earners.
Middle = Yahoo as its the easiest site to get onto and never leave. If you dont know much about the internet you probably think Yahoo IS the internet.
Bottom = AOL as its the one that spams people with free CDs in the hope that the cheap offers lures in the users. These people believe the first piece of spam they read and dont think to question it, so its no surprise they are the lower earners.
@Duncan,
I have been a big fan of your posts. However this time, I think your post title and analysis is not consistent with the data that you have used to draw that conclusion. The data simply shows the amount spent by the respective classes online. Amount spent online is not same as amount spent. There are many rich people who do not spend anything online.
Again how did they measure the usage of the two platforms. Number of pageviews? Obviously people use more pageviews on search engine than destination sites. Time spent on each will be a better representation. Request you to please clarify.
If anything, yahoo suffers from poor conversion. That is why all this talk about yahoo outsourcing its advertisements to Google. If you think about it, outsourcing to Google will not change the demographic of Yahoo users. It will simply bring more targetted advertisements to the users.
Last but not the least, I think the comments are bang on target on the topic. It may be simply a distinction between techies vs non-techies and nothing else.
Irrelevant data. People use services for features.
As far as the financial services and enterprise world are concerned, yahoo gives me crap results and is full of ads that take up space.
It is interesting to compare the two for the same search terms, but I find yahoo distracting. Also, the copycat mentality at yahoo is disconcerting, like the “did you mean xxxx” at the top of the results.
Watching the progression over the last 9 years, I would be concerned that if everyone switched to yahoo, and google ‘died’, yahoo search wouldnt change ’cause there wouldn’t be anywhere to get new feature ideas from anymore.
Easy: You log in yahoo mail: Slow and lots of ads with pictures… is this hotmail or what?
Gmail: Pure interface, no time loss with uselss features.
People dont care about the hype or looks, Gmail and google is the most effcient. ( except for flickr)
Let say if both Yahoo!, and Google, need to charge for their services, I’d surmise that more people are willing to pay Yahoo!
Recall how gmail users were established: By social networking, with index cases being those most informed about google and its growing services. It may not be the case anymore, but one had to get invited to open a Gmail account. I don’t think the same level of self-selection was at play when people discovered and opened yahoo accounts. And while I have both, I use my yahoo accounts more because I hate having my mail analyzed for marketing opportunities to the extent that gmail does it. And finally, I can assure you that my wife and I have the same SES and she uses gmail/google more, and I use yahoo more. So, I’d agree: These data appear to make mountains out of molehills and assume erroneously that the pool of users for each company’s services were generated in comparable ways.
I’ve watched the video over at Hubspot that in part ascribes the level of education of the user to the frequency of clicking on paid ads…. More education = less clicks on Google Adwords ads….. Less education=more ad clicks.
Couple that kind of thinking with this, and the conclusion I come to is that those who are really looking for answers or using search while at work are more focused and don’t have time for distraction and diversion – Google use. Yahoo is for those who use computers for recreation and distraction….
I wonder if there is any correlation to time of day and search engine use? Does anyone use different search engines at home and at work or do we all keep our search engine preferences all the time?
Thats alot of rubbish man. Why waste time on posting something like that ?
With honesty there is no real data to suggest more poor people use one than the other.
Can’t believe you wasted my time like this. you owe me $100 usd for the time youve wasted already this week.
This data is nothing that we weren’t already aware of. I was born in central Florida and visit family every christmas and none of them use Google and it’s all about Yahoo! mail, search, personals, autos, news and more. It’s actually kind of amazing how much they all prefer Yahoo! to Google where back home it’s all about The G.
“Although a distance second in search, Yahoo has remained the number one traffic destination online ahead of Google, so you’d think with more traffic Yahoo would convert that traffic into similar returns to Google.”
I don’t think that’s the case. Online properties don’t make any money. Advertising does. And that’s where Google succeeds and Yahoo fails. Just having highly trafficked online properties isn’t helping Yahoo, it’s advertising platform is just not as popular as Google’s. That’s why an advertising deal with Google may possibly salvage Yahoo.
Hey…. its not abt being rich or poor.
Its about liking complexity(yahoo) or simplicity(google)
Maybe those “poor” people are just not as much consumerists as those using google?
How was this data even captured? You enter your W2 information at the beginning of your search? I find it interesting how people can always find these so called facts from a few numbers. Dewey Defeats Truman!
nice to know
I wonder how hitwise got “wealth of each user.” ??
e.g the hitwise report sez “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.”
So how did Hitwise get that Info – did google cough up my online buying habits to hitwise ?? was my personal buy trend on checkout sold ??
“I mentioned this to my husband and he asked if the Google users spend more online. Good question (he seems to think young people have no money)!” [ ..] based on offline data collected by Experian).
whose Eperian and why no linky URL so that we can dispute the entry or the theory.. ??
Somehow Content at Techcrunch has become trash.. em good old bloggers see to have dissappered !!
Duncan as a problogger, I certainly expect you to come out /question the facts rather then just blog about what some else sez !
irresponsible jounralism used to get people fired…techcrunch is getting more and more like fuckedcompany in the day…a complete waste of braincells.
This is a worthless analysis. Why would Hitwise waste their time putting this senseless garbage together? Not to rag on this, but seriously…. what tangible, useful, applicable conclusion can you derive from this info graphic.
Nice and useful info can be used by marketers for positioning targetted ads.
http://tekno-wo...ld.blogspot.com
I never use yahoo to search, I use google search most of time
I agree with the previous commenter that it’s not poor vs. money but tech vs. non tech. It still may equate to poor vs. not-as-poor but I think it’s important to think of the source.
Inherent in the Google design is a whole bunch of nothing. It’s a search box. Techie-hearts love this because it gives what we need – a search box.
Most people do not have that kind of purpose when they go online, and Yahoo gives them pictures, and colors, and suggestions, and…well…a whole bunch of stuff that would be a non-techie paradise. All that, all on one page, and you can go there with just one click.
Just my opinion, but I think the affluent have the time to learn new technology enough to use it effectively. I know someone that had a computer and they didn’t know you could switch the home page. They thought if they tried to change it, something would break and (I’m not kidding) the Internet would stop working for them.
It’s more a worldview that contributes to socio-economic status than the socio-economic status itself that makes this graph mean something.
Please dont compare Yahoo & Google.
Google is a medium
Yahoo is a portal
Google is the best search engine in this world. Data says people don’t use google docs properly. Google maps has equal competitors, Live maps is very calm now, but they have very good innovative features.
Yahoo is a portal with lots and lots of information. Yahoo Home page has lots of data required for every one in the world. Yahoo is Great!!!!
Love Live Yahoo!!!
@ the fanboi:
/facepalm
Interestign data, but comments contain better analysis than the post itself. Agree w/ other commenters that the trend is more likley to be correlated to degree of sophistication as online user.
Sophisticated users rely on Google for search (yes, it is the best search engine out there) and are also more likely to be comfortable making purchases online. Less sophisticated users search where they do their reading (Yahoo! portal) and are still more comfortable shopping brick-and-mortar.
Also, the nature of Yahoo (mostly portal) vs. Google (mostly search) should also be addressed in the analysis.
Since search results are more and more determined by who has the biggest advertising budget rather than relevance to the search, I don’t see where this information is valuable to anyone but the engines themselves. Anyone, whether a “techie” or not who is doing indepth research will use multiple searches anyway. I remember the good ole’ days when you didn’t have to pay for inclusion – now it’s all about who has the biggest ad pocketbook…a shame. No wonder they want to know who is “spending” and who is not!
@ Todd
I always use google because that is what I’m familiar with. The ads on any site rarely distract me, I just focus on the content.
I agree on the tech versus non-tech just from the trends I have noticed from my family. I am a technically inclined person, an engineer. My parents are not. I probably have hundreds of niche websites bookmarked that I could use for relevant information (news, articles) if I needed it.
Non-techs can’t or don’t know they exist. They rely on Yahoo for services that Digg, Reddit (before they started getting low quality) provide. Newsfeeders, Blog Rovr, and other similar services provide features that I think exceed Yahoo!’s portal functionality. In the end, it is all about how much you know / use the internet to what search you need.
I definitely agree with the posts above, I use google because it is non-cluttered, straight-forward and provides the most relevant hits if you search properly…and I think good searching is a skill.
How does Friendster stack up? I use it all the time and last year I spent more than 20,341 Philippines Pesos online.
Google ads are so overrated it hurts. Have you or anyone you know ever clicked a google ad? How they can be worth multi-billions from text links is beyond me. Wake up people – its a scam!!!
I honestly think its simply because Yahoo was the first to come out and advertise the search engine on television. At that time it was the leader in search, and many people may just feel comfortable with what they have used all along.
I (like most) use google.
You should be careful not to offend your user base with headlines like that… I dont care personally, and generally hate PC, but labeling “farmers” and “blue collar” as “poor people” wouldn’t make them so happy…
That being said, your assertion isn’t accurate. Just because people who use Google have more money doesn’t mean they will spend more money online. Furthermore, if there is more mass to the less fortunate people, or if the target audience for your product is found in that group, then they are better targeted on Yahoo. More money!= more spending.
WTF????? This is total waste of space and time. Come on Mike ….you can do better than this rubbish
Interesting that it looks like the Gardner quadrant. If your reading TechCrunch you know that mostly only technology folks know about and those that are buying from them. Hummm…
@29, exactly — irrelevant unless you just compare the search portion of the Yahoo destination. Not clean enough data here for a valid comparison.
that study doesn’t make any sense to me
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
Oh no, here we go again. First it was less-educated “poor people” use MySpace and highly-educated “wealthy people” use Facebook, now it’s Yahoo! and Google. I think Lou makes a good observation in that it might be more of a case of “non-techies vs techies as opposed to rich vs poor.” But then that poses the question, do techies make more money than non-techies?
However, what I’m more concerned with is Hitwise knowing how much I spend each month at any given site. I’m with /pd on this: “I wonder how hitwise got ‘wealth of each user.’ ??” Yeah, how did they get this data? Sure, I know my spending habits in where I go and shop are tracked, but sharing the dollar amount of everything we purchase online with a third-party company doesn’t seem right. WTF! I’d like to know who is sharing how much I’m spending online each month with Hitwise.
And online spending habits doesn’t determine wealth nor does it determine that you’re “better off” than those who spend less online. You could spend a whole lotta money online and be broke-@ss “poor.”
Duncan, where are they getting this data?
I began my online experience with AOL in the mid 90’s and as soon as yahoo advertized on national television I opted in. Gmail did not get onto the scene until years later and I have many significant emails that I have sent and therefore retrieve for a point of reference. I have always thought Gmail was a tad bit generic so I never switched; plus Y gets better all the time so why switch for a search engine that is always available with a couple of key strokes.
This is not shocking. What’s a bit shocking is that they needed a fancy research firm to tell us this.
Jigar, I think you’re the one thinking black and white. There are plenty of people into both technology and art, and plenty of people who don’t care for either. People who pigeonhole so quickly are rarely all that creative.
CBA to scroll up, but to whoever was saying we should use both for proper research… Google and Yahoo are not “sources”, nor are they the best way to find good sources- at best they are a starting point for gathering basic background information. If you’re trying to be remotely credible, you should be looking at scholarly journals, not Wikipedia and FOX Online.
My community is the epitome of poor white trash. We were founded by moonshiners and our name reflects that. My landlord’s been arrested twice for growing pot, and my neighbor has no kitchen sink. My other neighbor blew up HER kitchen sink while making meth. Someone had a living room set (couch, loveseat, TV, nightstand and lamp) on the lawn for about 4 months last year. On a larger scale, our area is pretty rural blue-collar. Some of my friends from HS were farmers’ kids, and many were kids of construction workers and other blue-collar professions. Those of us who have (or have access to) a computer use Google. The only people I know who use Yahoo are the senior citizens who don’t know, and don’t care, how to change their homepage or move between pages without clicking on little blue links. On average, they have more money than the Google-users because they’ve moved from a richer area to retire here (the climate is very nice and we have beaches!). I’m a bit doubtful of this study, overall.
#43,
I’m with you. I want to know where they got this data. If one group has to be richer, my guess would be the Google search users.
But please tell us how you came up with this “data”.
@44 i think that is the key – Y! advertised on national television. Google did not. YouTube now *is* national television, but still.
Y! came alive at a time when there was basically nobody on the Free Internet yet. Therefore, they weren’t just marketing themselves – their essential message in their ads was “get online, it’s a blast!” Google came around later and cherry-picked the market segment they wanted, without really trying to DESTROY their predecessor Yahoo. It’s like a Web kereitsu – a happy oligopoly, but Microsoft wants in because it sees monopoly potential with the lock-in on these services.
There’s a profound story of LOCK-IN as a subtext here. I guess consumers get locked-into Frito-Lay products too, but this is mass loyalty on an astonishing level – decades of loyalty from a mass media audience. Unlike, say, the Big Three networks, Yahoo! has to compete with an entire Internet full of astonishing choice. For them to have created this kind of long-term loyalty is priceless, and Ballmer wants to acquire these souls for $666 apiece. Frightening.
I have always appreciated the innocence and delight that is conveyed by the Yahoo! brand. Yang and Filo succeeded fundamentally by doing something cool, clever, cute and connected. They were the first of the Web business naifs – Jim Clarke had an SGI chip on his shoulder, but the two Yahoo! kids were like, screw it, let’s name the company Yahoo! and just have FUN for a living !!! They were the Bill and Ted on an excellent online adventure, and we all followed along. I think Yang should bring Filo back and take those DiggNation kids as an example. Yang For President !!!!
-srini
metanotes.com
…so you’d think with more traffic Yahoo would convert that traffic into similar returns to Google. But alas we know that not to be the case, and that would appear in part to be related to people using Yahoo not spending as much online* and being in poorer demographic categories than Google users, providing a lower return per user.
•According to that Hitwise post you referenced, those highly indexed on Yahoo are younger users whereas older ones are highly indexed on Google. Which group has the higher propensity to spend online between these two age groups?
Did you get your post title from the bubbles?
it looks like it has more to do with age than anything else. strange though, because i’ve always casually associated Yahoo with older users.
the hitwise blog (click the word “Yesterday” in Duncan’s first sentence) says “Yahoo! Search Draws Younger Audience; Google Users Big Spenders Online,” so I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to report this as “rich vs. poor.” Using “old vs. young” may be better – even though they are typically very closely associated.
Do you have evidence that online purchasing habits are a true indication of class? Yahoo and Google both have unique values for people and in case of revenues Google has executed better. Yahoo has done a miserable job integrating their acquisitions and looking ahead for innovation. They can hang on to mail for only so long.
I like Google on many fronts but have been using Google search less and less as the relevance of search results is reducing consistently. Their mapping and local products are improving though.