Here are a few highlights of the ACSI E-Business Report, released today (and every August) and measuring portals, search engines, and news & information sites:
- ACSI scores for the e-business sector are way up: up 5.5% to an all-time high of 79.3 on the ACSI's 100-point scale. The jump is mostly due to Google's huge 10% increase to 86, the highest score ever achieved by any company in the e-business survey.
- Yahoo! had a brief lead over Google last year, but dropped 3% this year. The company has been dealing with too much to make customer satisfaction a top priority.
- Ask.com is down just a bit after a huge increase last year, but still maintains a huge improvement over time (they are up 19% since first being measured).
What I see is a fundamental shift in the way people are using and accessing the Internet. Search engines are gaining market share faster than portals as people move increasingly towards using search AS a portal to the internet. I think this shift is going to marginalize companies whose main business model is related to more traditional portal functionality, and we see that marginalization predicted by the ACSI results.
At this point Google and Ask.com are the only two e-business companies being measured by the ACSI that are enjoying any significant growth that has been sustained over time. Since satisfaction is a proven predictor of financial success, loyalty, word-of-mouth recommendations and even stock prices, the other measured companies should really watch out.
Get a free copy of the full report here.
So do the results surprise you? Were you expecting such a huge increase from Google this year?
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