Much like the marketing world, Google is ever-changing – and as marketers, it’s more important than ever to keep up with it.

As a team of expert digital marketers, we’re dedicated to helping you find success with Google while keeping up with the trends.

But before you can study the trends, you should feel you know Google well – beyond just how to navigate the SERPs. It is one of the most valuable brands in the world and the number one search engine, after all.

Google Facts and Statistics You Should Know in 2021

Facts About Google

Google launched on September 4, 1998. 

At $207.5 billion, Google was the second-most valuable brand in the world in 2020. Apple took the top spot. 

Google saw a revenue of more than $145 billion in 2020.

Google Search, Play, Advertising, and YouTube, provided $385 billion of economic activity across over 1.4 million American businesses. 

Google accounts for 85% of the global search engine market compared to Bing’s 7%.

By March 2021, Google already accounted for over 70% of all global desktop search traffic, followed by Baidu (13%), Bing (12%), and Yahoo (2%).

Google sees an estimated 3.5 billion searches each day. 

There are 63,000 Google searches every second.

US-based internet users conduct an estimated 40-60 billion Google searches each month.

Google is the most-visited site in the world, before YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, respectively.

On average, users stay on Google for just under 12 minutes.

The average user visits 8.66 pages.

93% of global internet traffic comes from Google Search, Images, and Maps.

Google is responsible for almost 2 million direct connections each month.

There are more than 75,000 Google employees in 26 states across the country.

The Google Display Network reaches 90% of internet users.

Now, let’s take a closer look at Google Search and Google Ads.

Google Search Statistics

There are over 190 different versions of Google search.

The Google Search index contains hundreds of billions of webpages is over 100,000,000 gigabytes in size.

Google has received over 900,000 delist requests since 2014.

The volume of Google searches increases by approximately 10% each year.

82% of desktop searches originate from Google.

More than 1 in 4 users click the first result in Google’s search results.

Less than half of all Google searches result in a click.

On average, image results see a CTR of just 0.21%.

Less than 2% of Google clicks go to YouTube links.

46% of all Google searches have local intent.

“Where to buy” + “near me” mobile queries have grown by more than 200% since 2019.

Over half of businesses have yet to claim their Google My Business listing.

63% of Google’s organic search traffic comes from mobile devices.

70% of mobile searchers call a business directly from Google Search.

84% of those on the internet use Google at least three times per day.

Google is home to 9.5 billion keywords.

Some of the most-searched Google terms are Facebook, Youtube, Amazon, Gmail, eBay, and Walmart.

Less than 1% of keywords are responsible for 60.67% of all searches.

The 500 most popular search terms make up just 8.4% of all search volume.

Google uses 810 unique SERP features, and 161 are found on more than 0.2% of keywords. 

Google uses more than 200 ranking factors.

The most important ranking factors are direct website visits, time on site, pages per session, and bounce rate.

The first five organic results see 68% of all clicks.

The second and third positions in the search results have a 15% and 11% click-through rate (CTR) respectively. The tenth position has just a 2.5% CTR.

On average, the page in the number one spot will also rank in the top 10 results for nearly 1,000 other relevant keywords.

The first result in Google’s organic search results sees an average click-through rate (CTR) of 31.7% and three times as many backlinks as those in positions two through ten. 

Less than 1% of Google clicks occur on the second page.

The average page that ranks in the top ten results is over two years old.

A page that ranks in the number one position is, on average, three years old.

Just 6% of newly published pages will make it to the first page of search results within a year. Of those that do, it takes 61–182 days to do so.

A majority of pages (91%) see no organic search traffic from Google.

Over half of shoppers say they use Google to research an online purchase. 

Yelp appears in the top five search results for 92% of Google web queries that include a city and business category. 

Half of internet users have noticed incorrect information on Google.

Google shows meta descriptions for just 37% of results. This increases to 40% for fat-head keywords but drops to 34% for long-tail keywords.

Updating and republishing old blog posts with new content and images can increase organic traffic by as much as 106%.

Over half of shoppers use Google to research a purchase they plan to make online. 

Comparison searches with the word “best” on Google have increased 80% since 2019.

The Most Noteworthy Google Search Trends of 2020

“How to donate” was searched twice as often as “how to save money” in 2020.

PPE, blood, and plasma were among the top donation searches in 2020.

The top five searches of 2020 were “election results,” “coronavirus,” “Kobe Bryant,” “Coronavirus update,” and “Coronavirus symptoms.”

The top five people searched for in 2020 were Joe Biden, Kim Jong Un, Kamala Harris, Jacob Blake, and Ryan Newman.

There have been over 565,000 political ads on Google since 2018.

Political ad spend on Google has reached more than $747 million since 2018.

Joe Biden spent the most money on political ads in 2020. His spending totaled $83.7 million and was followed closely by Donald Trump, who spent $83.4 million.

Google Ads (PPC) Statistics

73% of the paid search market share belongs to Google.

33% of mobile ad spend is spent on Google.

Google drives 95% of all paid search ad clicks on mobile.

With 96% of brands using it, Google Ads is the most popular PPC network. The platform can increase brand awareness by up to 80%.

Over 1.2 million businesses are advertising on the Google Search Network and over 1 million on the Google Ad Display Network.

72% of Google Ads marketers plan to increase their PPC budgets in the next year.

About four times as many people will click a paid search ad on Google (63%) than on any other search engine. This includes Amazon (15%), YouTube (9%), and Bing (6%).

About 97% of Google’s total revenues come from Google Ads, with 96% of brands spending money on the platform. 

Google Ads show up on 41.5% of all Google searches.

On average, businesses typically make $3 for every $1.60 spent on Google Ads.

There are over 300,000 mobile apps currently serving Google Mobile Ads.

The average cost per click (CPC) for Google Ads is $2.69 on the search network. This drops to $0.63 on the display network.

For every 0.1% increase in CTR, cost-per-click decreases by 20% on the Google display network.

When local service ads (LSA) are present, 25.3% of all clicks go to paid results. 

LSAs see an average cost-per-lead of anywhere from $6 to $30.

When LSAs are absent, just 14.6% of clicks go to paid results.

Almost half of Google users say they never click on ads – but 63% of users have clicked on a Google ad.

People who click on ads are 50% more likely to make a purchase.

Online ads increase brand awareness by 80%.

65% of small-to-midsize businesses use paid advertising.

Google ads deliver an 8:1 return on investment.

To learn more about how The Loop Marketing can help you use Google to your advantage, reach out today.