A Google world
In order to optimise your website, you need to know what you are optimising for. Luckily for us, there is one clear leader in the search engine market - Google.
Google dominates the market in the UK, Europe and the US. As shown here, almost three in four searches in the UK use Google, leaving the nearest rivals well behind.
Google's average market share for the US and the whole world is 55.39% and 62.4% respectively. Although significantly less than in the UK, these figures show that Google is still very much in front of its rivals in these markets.
Furthermore, AOL results are fed by Google, giving Google 78.88% of the market. With such a clear leader, the other search engines have to follow many of the same search techniques.
In conclusion, optimise primarily for Google!
Statistics source: WebSideStory, February 2006 - from All Headline News.
Related links
Search engine relationship chart
All Headline News: Google Dominates U.K. Search Engine Market Share
Google-centric
"Even more so in the UK than in the US, when people think of search, they think of Google."
"This has large implications for UK marketers, whose search engine marketing and optimization strategies should be Google-centric."Rand Schulman, Chief Marketing Officer - WebSideStory