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The Poor uses Yahoo; Rich ones use Google

A set of data recently released by HitWise suggests a trend on the economic status of people using either Google or Yahoo search engines. The results revealed that those financially well-off are likely to use Google while the lower class ones gravitate to Yahoo.

Furthermore, Google users tend to be the older generation and spend more money online while Yahoo users are the younger people and ones that spend less online.

The graph below shows the age groups as surveyed by Hitwise :

Search Graphs

Despite the fact that Google leads in online search (60+% of total searches), Yahoo is still the #1 most visited website online. Obviously, the population that goes online just don’t do search — they also do emails, groups, answers, news and the lot — which attributes to the massive traffic Yahoo is getting on that front. Google on the other hand doesn’t create its own content.

As I mentioned above, comparing Google and Yahoo from this perspective might has some inherent bias mainly because Yahoo users are more spread out because of the various services it offers while Google is only doing search (okay, maybe mail.google.com as well but those are few and far between).

Rich Poor

In that sense, Google users should have spent much less time on the site because they’d jump off to the target websites right after viewing the search results. Maybe this is the reason why Google went out and added more links on it’s default search page to point out its other services.

In a way, the Hitwise report may be comparing a very sharp paring knife (Google) to a regular all-in-one Swiss Army knife (Yahoo).

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

24 Responses

  1. Avatar for ian ian says:

    i think it because there’s a lot of company using google apps domain, calendar and other application in google rather than using services of yahoo, lol
    yes yahoo was sucks in their services…but there’s a secret in yahoo about trading or selling rare old id’s for yahoo chat.

  2. Avatar for Mang Pandoy Mang Pandoy says:

    i disagree to that. i think its just Google i more popular because it was known as a search engine while yahoo was well known because of their wide variety of internet services.

  3. Avatar for Mandaragat Mandaragat says:

    Strange no’. Another digital myth I guess…

  4. Avatar for Redel Redel says:

    I use Google more especially when searching. :)

  5. Avatar for Coy Coy says:

    Hmmm… I know most friendster addicts STILL use Yahoo.

    I don’t think Yahoo (Search) is for the poor. It’s for the jologs. LOL.

    • Avatar for seo services for seo services for says:

      I really like reading through a post that will make
      people think. Also, thank you for allowing for me to comment!

  6. Avatar for ChrisMo ChrisMo says:

    I equally use both, google for searching, google for metrics, google for adwords, google for maps, google for adsense. Then theres Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Answers, Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Small Business. Well whatever floats your boat.

    Now let’s survey the Techie, non-techie crowd…

  7. Avatar for Gian Paolo Gian Paolo says:

    I am not rich and I am 17 but I use Google. That means I am part of that 17% something no (Well, actually, no I am not since it says 18-24)?

  8. Avatar for Loy Loy says:

    the philippines is a third world country…does this mean that most filipinos use yahoo search?

    and some of the rich in our country doesn’t necessarily use either yahoo or google? i think the study doesn’t apply to the philippine setting…

    also, does the study mean that google caters more in terms of content and services to the rich?

    maybe there’s a bias here…

  9. Avatar for Jan Alvin Jan Alvin says:

    I will make a comment post about this issue in my blog www.blogtambayan.blogspot.com

    I guess theres nothing much to do about it. That the trends shows.

  10. Avatar for Jomark Osabel Jomark Osabel says:

    By the time Microsoft will be able to acquire Yahoo through a proxy fight then I guess the statistics will change too.

    Im not rich either but I use google more.

  11. Avatar for Jeffrey Jeffrey says:

    Okay the survey confirms that i’m indeed rich.

    I don’t remember a time when i spent a centavo at Yahoo. But i did spend quiet a few hundreds to thousands of pesos on Google’s Adwords.

    Why Yahoo is losing money: It’s because they’re hiring writers or buying content from other sources to put on their site while it’s users are spending less.

    While Google legally steals content from several news sources, libraries and authors, consequently they save a lot of money.

  12. Avatar for BrianB BrianB says:

    I’ve always used Google since I was a tiny toddler. Ha. But there’s nothing like a man who grew up on Yahoo but through hard work and individual ability ascended to become one of the Google users.

  13. Avatar for Lloyd Lopez Lloyd Lopez says:

    If only it is true on my case but even though I’m using Google, I’m not rich. LOL :D

  14. Avatar for franz franz says:

    Well it depends on what is the definition of poor is.

    Poor in America can be considered as filthy rich here in the Philippines.

    And poor is very relative. Poor in other countries can be considered as not owning an ipod or a laptop so the study is only applicable to where it was done.

  15. Avatar for Ronin Ronin says:

    @dusty: i think it’s Monster RX 93.1 :D

  16. Avatar for blozoom! blozoom! says:

    yay i belong to the rich. but yikes i belong to the old. that leaves MSN/live for what? for microsoft employees.

  17. Avatar for ballz ballz says:

    2 years ago I was poor and I use Yahoo
    now that I’m rich , I use Google.

    Data seems correct

  18. Avatar for Spidey Spidey says:

    I love Google… Gmail too.

    But Im not rich.

  19. Avatar for Kiven Kiven says:

    Abe, US ito ano? Im interested to see what the local stats are hmmm pero it will boil down to what is installed sa i-cafe

  20. Avatar for Dusty Dusty says:

    Hmmm … does this mean that

    *Radio Station Analogy*

    Google = RX 93.9

    Yahoo = 90.7 Love Radio

    ???

    HeHe

  21. Avatar for Dara Dara says:

    I’m wondering about the mechanics of this study. How big was the sample? What’s the margin of error? I don’t entirely buy it, just due to my personal experiences not aligning with the results. But interesting nonetheless, I’d like to see more about it.

  22. Avatar for spidamang spidamang says:

    ^not really. I use google too. :D

  23. Avatar for jhay jhay says:

    I’m not rich, I’m young and I use Google more than Yahoo!, so am I an anomaly? :P

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