Study: Google Gets Bulk of World Search

Inside Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., May 15, 2007. Google Inc.'s stock price sailed past $600 for the first time Monday, extending a rally that has elevated the Internet search leader's market value by about $25 billion in the past month. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) (Paul Sakuma - AP)

ComScore also has a smaller panel recruited using traditional, phone-based methods, and the search figures are adjusted to account for differences in age, income and other factors between the panels. ComScore, like Nielsen, says it needs online techniques to assemble a large enough, albeit self-selected panel.

With Internet users more fragmented than the television audience, Ivins said, "I don't think you can do what we're doing on a scale we're doing with a toolkit from the last century."

Many traditional pollsters are skeptical.

Such an approach assumes that those who initiate participation, such as responding to a free offer, behave similarly to those who do not _ an assumption that still needs more research to prove, said Nancy A. Mathiowetz, president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

Jordan Rohan, an Internet analyst with RBC Capital Markets, is aware of limitations but considers the numbers "the best I've got."

ComScore estimates that about 750 million people worldwide used Internet search in August, each person averaging about 80 searches.

Europe and Latin America tend to have more searches conducted per person. Ivins said Internet penetration in those markets grew as search technology was already developed, unlike in the United States where human-powered directories were initially strong.

"It just became natural for them" to use search, Ivins said.