Reporting on Google’s market share as of late is like reporting on the sky (do you know it’s blue?).

But at this time, Looking for Alpha printed an article with a clickable headline of ChatGPT eats away at Google search’s dominance.

This text (which is paywalled, so I’m not linking to it) is predicated on a Financial institution of America report (why is Financial institution of America speaking about search market share?), which is predicated on knowledge from StatCounter and Related Net, which I discovered of by way of an X submit by Greg Sterling.

By the numbers. Google’s worldwide search market share, based on StatCounter:

• October 2023: 91.53%
• October 2022: 92.34%

That is Google’s lowest international search market share prior to now 12 months. However is that this ChatGPT consuming into Google’s search market share? Extraordinarily unlikely.

The issue? Statcounter doesn’t observe ChatGPT as a result of – good day? – it isn’t a search engine. It’s an LLM-based generative AI chatbot.

Comparatively steady. Google Search has been “comparatively steady” over the previous 12 months, based on the report. Nicely, sure. However we will truly go additional again than that on StatCounter.

Google has been “comparatively steady” since August 2015. That’s the month Google surpassed 91% search market share worldwide for the primary time.

Prior to now seven years, Googe’s search market share has bounced round from 91.1% (December 2015) to 93.37% (February 2023). For many of those eight years, ChatGPT didn’t exist, together with from April to August 2018 when Google’s search market share dipped under 91%.

What about Bing? Microsoft Bing continues to be down year-on-year, 3.13% (October 2023) vs. 3.59% (October 2022), based on Statcounter. In the meantime, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has warned us that AI will make Google extra dominant.

Dig deeper. The brand new Bing has didn’t take any market share from Google after six months.

Different numbers. Some month-over-month comparisons from Related Net:

• Google visitors declined to 2.8 billion (down 0.4%).
• Bard visitors elevated to eight.7 million (up 2%).
• Bing visitors elevated to 42.7 million (up 8%)
• ChatGPT visitors elevated to 55 million (up 4%). An essential reminder right here – ChatGPT’s visitors is barely 2% of Google’s internet visitors.

Why we care. Generative AI is – and can proceed to – reshape search as we all know it. However false narratives aren’t useful for anyone. Google continues to be as dominant because it has been since 2015. The impression of Google, ChatGPT and generative AI on search is a narrative for search entrepreneurs to observe. However for now, there’s nothing to see right here.