43 Google Stats You Simply Cannot Miss Out On in 2020

Ljubica Cvetkovska Feb 09, 2020 · 8 months ago

When was the last time you Googled something? A couple of minutes ago or perhaps even a few seconds? According to the latest Google stats, using the search engine to get information about anything and everything has become such an integral part of our lives that it would be hard to imagine functioning without it. In fact, to billions around the world, Google is the search engine, their go-to-source for videos, entertainment, emails, and apps.

From a garage to Googleplex, Google has grown into one of the most innovative companies that have not stopped changing and influencing the digital world.

10 Must-Know Google Stats in 2020

Google’s revenue totaled $40.3 billion in the third quarter of 2019.
$116 billion of the total revenue came from advertising.
Alphabet owns over 200 companies.
Google Chrome has a market share of 64.3%.
There are 1.5 billion active Gmail accounts in 2019.
There are 2.5 billion active Android users.
Google processes over 40,000 searches per second, Google stats and search queries show.
15% of all Google searches are unique.
“Business services” is the most expensive keyword in Google Ads.
Google is the most-visited web property in the US.

Company Stats and Facts

1. Google’s revenue totaled $40.3 billion in the third quarter of 2019.

(Statista)

Up from $38.8 billion from the previous quarter and $36.34 billion in Q1 2019, Google’s revenue keeps on growing and growing. Its annual revenue for 2018 amounted to $136.22 billion, Google stats and facts show.

2. $116 billion of the total revenue came from advertising.

(Statista)

In 2018, 70.7% of revenue was generated from advertising through Google’s own sites and 14.7% through ads on third-party websites, accounting for around 85% of the total revenue last year. The remaining 14.6% were derived from licensing, the sale of digital content, cloud subscriptions, and hardware.

3. Alphabet generated a revenue of $155.058 billion in 2019.

(Statista; macrotrends.net)

This is a 19.4% increase according to Google statistics for 2018 when Alphabet generated $136.819 billion in annual earnings. Its main revenue comes from Google, which is also the only reportable operating segment of the company. Revenue from the Other Bets segment made only $595 million in 2018.

4. Alphabet’s market cap was $932 billion in December 2019.

(Yahoo Finance; Search Engine Land)

When Google shares first went public in 2004, the company was valued at $23 billion. Today, 15 years later, Alphabet is the third biggest company in the world in terms of market cap, Google statistics indicate. It is preceded only by Apple and Amazon.

5. Alphabet owns over 200 companies.

(Investopedia)

In terms of boosting revenue, YouTube, AdSense, and Doubleclick are some of Google’s best acquisition decisions. Alphabet continues to buy new companies in hardware, cloud technologies, and many, many other areas. From hot air balloons beaming down the internet to self-driving cars, there isn’t a lot of tech Google isn’t interested in.

6. Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion.

(Factslides; Business of Apps‏)

Just a couple of YouTube and Google stats are enough to convince us that Google was right on the money with this purchase. YouTube has over 2 billion active users a month, which is around one-third of all people on the Internet. Over one billion videos are watched every day and over 500 hours of videos are uploaded every minute. Not to mention that it generated between $9 and $14 billion in revenue last year.

7. The average salary for Google employees is $114,000.

(PayScale; CNBC)

The salary varies according to country and position. According to Google stats and facts, the lowest-ranked among the top 10 paid jobs at Google is Director of Marketing with an average annual salary of $245,000, while the best-paid job at the company goes to the Senior Vice President. An SVP at Google can earn between $661,000 and $710,000 a year.

8. Google had 103,549 employees in the first quarter of 2019.

(CNN; Insider)

This is an increase of over 15,000 from the same period in 2018, statistics about Google reveal. Google is famous for offering an endless number of perks for its employees from massage therapists, free shuttles, gourmet meals, and tons of other benefits. Not to mention getting the chance to collaborate with some of the greatest and most creative minds across the globe.

9. The majority of Google employees are white.

(Statista; Wired)

In 2019, 54.4% of Google’s workforce was white, followed by Asians who made up 39.8% of all employees. Moreover, 5.7% of Google workers were of Latinx ethnicity, 3.3% were black, and 0.8% were Native American. Sadly, Google diversity statistics indicate a slight shift from previous years, but some progress is being made; it’s slow, but at least change is happening.

10. 68.4% of Google employees are men.

(Statista; Wired)

Google seems to be a man’s world as only 31.6% of employees are women. Furthermore, the most underrepresented demographic in the company are women of color. However, even though there are almost twice as many men than women working for the company worldwide, Google statistics show a higher retention rate of female rather than male employees.

More Facts and Stats on Google Services and Products

11. Google Chrome has a market share of 64.3%.

(StatCounter)

If you are looking to compare it with other browsers, don’t bother. They don’t come even close. Safari is second with 16.68%, followed by Firefox with 4.49%, and Samsung Internet with only 3.27% in market share worldwide.

12. Google Images accounts for 22.6% of all internet searches, Google search stats reveal.

(HubSpot; BroadbandSearch)

Google Maps, on the other hand, accounted for 13% of all searches. This translates to around 260 billion Google Maps searches a year.

13. Google Maps has more than 20 petabytes of data.

(Factslides)

Don’t feel like packing? With Google Street View you can visit the Grand Canyon, underwater coral reefs, the Mount Everest base camp, and you can even see images of Mars.

14. There are currently 74,590 live websites using Google Sites.

(BuiltWith)

Plus, there is an additional 67,626 domains redirecting to these websites, Google Site statistics indicate.

15. There are 1.5 billion active Gmail accounts in 2019.

(Android Police; Litmus)

That means that there is one active account for every five people on the planet. As if this number wasn’t impressive enough, Gmail accounts for 27% of all emails opened, just two percent less than Apple’s iPhone.

16. There are 2.8 million mobile apps on Google Play Store.

(Statista)

Originally launched as Android Market in 2008, Google Play hit the 1 million app mark 5 years later, Google statistics for 2013 show.

17. There are 2.5 billion active Android users.

(The Verge; StatCounter)

In 2019, Android held a global market share of 75.85%, while the second-ranked iOS had a market share of 22.87%.

18. Google Home added 600,000 more US users in 2018.

(VoiceBot)

Despite the admirable number of 7.1 million new Google Home smart speakers users in the US, Amazon Echo still remains the leader in this market segment; which doesn’t mean that it will stay that way forever.

Google Search Statistics

19. Google accounts for 87.96% of online traffic worldwide.

(Statista)

Ever since Google.com was launched in 1997, this search engine has dominated both the global and the US market (in the US, Google is estimated to generate 62.5% of all core searches). Bing searches make up 5.27% of all searches and the Chinese search engine Baidu had a market share of just 0.57% worldwide.

20. Google processes over 40,000 searches per second, Google stats and search queries show.

(Internet Live Stats)

This translates to around 83,337 GB of internet traffic in one second. In other words, Google processes a staggering 3.5 billion searches a day or an impressive 1.2 trillion searches per year across the globe.

21. 15% of all Google searches are unique.

(Search Engine Land; Pro Rank Tracker)

What does this mean? Simply put, 15% of searches have never been seen before by Google. This translates to around 896 million unique keywords being searched for, on a daily basis, Google statistics for searches reveal.

22. An average Google session takes under a minute.

(Moz)

Typing a search query, waiting for the results to load, and then clicking on results — this whole process lasts just under 60 seconds.

23. The second page results only capture 6% of website clicks.

(Forbes; Backlinko)

In 2014, estimates showed that first page results capture 71% of traffic clicks, while some more recent reports put this number as high as 92%, a huge difference between first and second-page results. But, being on the first page is not enough, the first page of Google statistics indicate. To get the best results, you need to be among the top five as those results get 67.6% of clicks. The other five results have a CTR of 3.73%.

24. The #1 result on Google has a CTR of 31.7%.

(Backlinko)

People are 10 times more likely to click on the first organic result than the number 10 spot. Just think – when was the last time you even considered clicking on anything below the fifth spot?

25. 66% of distinct searches result in one or more clicks on Google.

(Moz)

Of the distinct searches, only 3.4% resulted in clicks on paid ads, Google search statistics for 2017 show. If we look at all search queries (and I mean all), the number is even lower — around 2.6%. Since Google makes most of its money from ads, imagine how much more revenue it would generate if this percentage was a tad bit higher.

26. Title tags between 15 to 40 characters have the highest CTR.

(Backlinko)

It’s not just about the number of characters in the title. Research shows that pages with a question in their title have a 14.1% higher CTR. According to Google statistics on searches, adding emotion to your title also boosts traffic as titles expressing either a positive or negative emotion had a higher CTR by around 7.4% and 7.2%, respectively.

27. 65% of clicks on paid Google ads come from mobile devices.

(Wordsteam; Moz)

The average CTR for mobile Google search ads is 4.1%, while for desktop ads it’s 3.17%. Organic results are something else, however. It seems that mobile searchers click on organic results 40.9% of the time, while desktop users do so 62.2% of the time, Google search statistics show.

28. 34% of “near me” searches lead to visits to brick-and-mortar stores.

(Wordstream; HubSpot)

“Near me” or “close by” searches have increased by a whopping 900% in just two years. 28% of these searches result in an actual purchase.

29. “What is Bitcoin” was the most popular “what-is” search on Google last year.

(Observer)

“How to vote,” on the other hand, was the most popular “how-to” query in 2018 and “World Cup” has been the most searched for term in the US, not just in 2018, but for almost 20 years in a row, Google keyword search statistics indicate.

30. “Business services” is the most expensive keyword in Google Ads.

(Wordstream)

This term overthrew “insurance” as the most expensive keyword in recent years. In 2019, “business services” had the highest cost-per-click ($58.64). “Bail bonds” take second place with $58.48 and Casino ranked third with an average CPC of $55.48.

31. The average searcher uses about 3 words in their search queries.

(Moz; Wordstream)

21.71% of searchers use one word-queries, while 23.80% of individuals search for 2-word queries, as proven by Google search statistics. Surprisingly, 16% of desktop users search for queries that are 6 words or longer as opposed to the 14% of mobile users that do so.

32. Mobile devices account for 60% of all organic search engine visits in 2019.

(Statista)

Google captures 95% of mobile organic search visits in the US. Bing accounts for only 1.6% and DuckDuckGo for less than 1% of mobile organic searches.

33. Google’s mobile search click share was 74%.

(Statista)

34% of all paid search clicks on Bing came from mobile devices. Looking at Bing vs Google statistics, Google seems to be ahead of the game in mobile searches with 68% of paid search clicks coming from phones, as opposed to the 27% share of Bing smartphone searches.

Google Users-By the Numbers

34. Google is the most-visited web property in the US.

(Statista)

With around 259 million visitors, Google sites were ranked number one among the most popular web properties in the US. This includes Google Search as well as YouTube, Gmail, and other online services, such as Google Play, Apps, and Maps, Google usage statistics reveal.

35. People in the US make up 34.3% of all Google.com visitors.

(Statista; HubSpot)

It should come as no surprise that most Google users come from the United States as estimates show that 27% of all Americans use Google.

36. 18 to 44 year-olds are more likely to use Google.

(ABORG; UserZoom)

Bing was found to be a favorite among the 45 to 64 year-olds, while seniors seem to prefer Yahoo! What’s more, Google users tend to be white-collar, college-educated, and more tech-savvy than Bing users.

A Few More Fun Google Stats and Facts

37. Google’s famous logo wasn’t centered on the page until 2001.

(Mashable)

Back in 1998, Google even had an exclamation mark next to it, just like Yahoo! did. Maybe it was meant to stand for the excitement of uncovering a ton of information with just the click of a button, or perhaps it was a way of tech companies following in each other’s footsteps. No one really knows!

38. The company’s logo got simplified as the company grew.

(HubSpot)

According to Google statistics and data on powerful logos, Google’s 2010 logo was the simplest yet as it lost it’s distinctive deep shadowing, giving it a somewhat flatter look. However, the Google logo we know and see every day was actually created in 2015.

39. The first Google Doodle was an “out of office” message to users.

(MentalFloss)

Google founders incorporated the Burning Man stick figure behind the “o” in the logo to show users they were heading to the famous Nevada festival. Thus, the first Google Doodle was born. Since then, Google stats show, the company has hired a whole team of designers who create multiple doodles a day for Google’s websites.

40. Google is actually a twist on the term “googol.”

(Entrepreneur)

Googol is a math term that represents the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. It was chosen by Google’s founders to suggests the infinite amount of data that the search engine could deliver. Well, with 1.2 trillion searches processed (as seen in Google search statistics for2016), they sure picked the right name.

41. Google was originally named Backrub.

(Pro Rank Tracker)

The name referred to Google’s algorithm for checking backlinks, which determines how pages are ranked in the search index. It sounds like a fun pun, but maybe it wasn’t the best choice of words.

42. The “I’m feeling lucky” button costs Google $110 million a year.

(Business Insider)

Clicking this button took searchers directly to the website that would’ve been listed as the top search result, thus skipping all of Google’s search results pages, Google statistics and search engine stats show. In 2007, Google execs said that 1% of queries went through this button, which means that 1% of all queries got zero ad clicks.

43. 2 billion lines of code run all of Google’s Internet services.

(Wired; weforum)

In fact, Google’s code is so complex that it contains 5,000 more lines of code than the original space shuttle. Not impressive enough? Then check this out: Facebook uses 61 million lines of code, while Microsoft’s Windows 10 (considered as the pinnacle of software tools in 2015) only had 50 million lines of code.

FAQs

How many people use search engines every day?

The average person is said to conduct 3 to 4 searches per day, while some studies show that 15% of US users carry out one or more searches on a daily basis and that heavy users boost the average. How many searches a day do you conduct?
Whatever the average, it is a fact that 93% of all web traffic is generated through search engines which goes to show how important search engine optimization is in today’s digital world.

How many searches does Google get a day?

It’s hard to calculate the exact number of Google searches, but it is estimated to be around 3.5 billion. This number should impress you, but in case it doesn’t — picture how far Google has come in processing searches. Back in 1999, it took the search engine one month to get an index of 50 million pages. Fast forward to 2012 and the same feat took less than one minute.

What is everyone searching for on Google?

No surprise here! It seems that the most searched for terms are branded. Facebook is number one with a search volume of 232,100,000, followed by YouTube and Amazon with a search volume of 196,100,000 and 106,200,000, respectively. What’s surprising, though, is that some of the things people have searched for recently.

For example, in October 2019, both in the US and many other countries in the world, people have become suddenly interested in Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau, a Belgian physicist, whose birth anniversary Google honored with a special Google Doodle.

How do I see what’s trending on Google?

This is actually simpler than it sounds. Since 2006, when Google launched a special tool, checking out the hottest trends on this search engine has become a piece of cake. The homepage itself offers quite a lot of information about what is trending that year and how popular that search query has been over the years.

Still, once you look for something specific, you’d be amazed at just how much data Google Trends has to offer. It provides information about a search query according to the location and time period, as well as a detailed comparison with other categories. Plus it includes data visualization, as an extra perk.

This website can be used for marketing purposes and SEO (obviously), as well as to inspire creativity among advertisers by checking out what the public is interested in. Or perhaps to satisfy people’s curiosity as to what others are searching for on Google?

Final Thoughts

Whether it’s YouTube, Android, or Google Maps, there’s no way your life hasn’t been touched by Google. What’s more, Google stats and forecasts show that this company isn’t going anywhere (anytime soon). Chances are it will continue to have an even greater impact on every aspect of our daily lives in the years to come.