The longer people have been using the Internet, the more likely it is that they’ll use Google, study finds

U.S. residents who prefer Google Inc.’s search engine tend to be richer and have more Internet experience than those who primarily use competing search services from Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and America Online Inc., a new study has found.

The longer people have been using the Internet, the more likely it is that Google will be their search engine of choice, according to a survey of 1,000 U.S. Internet users conducted by investment banking and research firm S.G. Cowen & Co. LLC.

Moreover, people whose primary search engine is Google are more likely to have household incomes above US$60,000 than people who use competing search engines, according to the survey, whose results S.G. Cowen published in a report Monday.

Google also emerged as the search engine of choice, with 52 percent of respondents choosing it as their primary engine for general Web searches. Yahoo came in second with 22 percent, while Microsoft’s MSN and AOL tied for third place with 9 percent. Ask Jeeves Inc. rounded out the top five with 5 percent. (Google powers AOL’s general Web searches.)

If Google users are wealthier and savvier online, and if Google is the search engine of choice for more than half of U.S. Internet users, then these survey results reinforce the notion among many businesses that it is critical for them to appear in Google search results or Google search ads or both, more so than in competing search engines.

Source: InfoWorld