QSearch 2.0, announced Monday, expands the market view of search behaviors and patterns.
"With the continued evolution of the search market, it has become clear there is a need to expand the way we think about search," James Lamberti, comScore senior VP of search solutions, said in a prepared statement.
The tool provides national and global search trends that encompass the top five U.S. search engines, the top 50 properties where searches occur, activities under way when a search occurred, vertical search locations such as eBay, and partner searches, which begin on partner sites and redirect visitors to search engines.
In other words, comScore clients can now figure out whether a search begins in a text box on a search engine portal, is an auto-search typed in the browser's URL line, begins from a text box on a downloaded search toolbar, is a local search, or starts on a partner site.
QSearch 2.0 also will cover cross-channel searches (e.g., Web, images, news), local search, and worldwide search with breakdowns for various countries.
ComScore said it will continue to report market-share rankings for search engines, known as "core search," which will allow comparison with the company's previous search share reports.
ComScore also will publicly report the number of search queries conducted in the expanded search universe for the top 10 search properties.
In July, Google sites ranked as the top property in the expanded search universe with 6.6 billion searches, with 5.5 billion driven by Google. Yahoo sites ranked second with 2.5 billion. Microsoft sites saw 1.3 billion searches, Time Warner had 959 million, and Fox Interactive Media had 587 million.
