Search Engine Usage Statistics Australia (2024)

Australia’s search engine usage has evolved from basic text-based searches on a desktop to voice searches using mobile phones and AI assistants, reflecting the dynamic nature of the Aussie digital space.

As one of the world’s most connected nations with roughly 95% of the population using the internet, we heavily rely on search engines for quick day-to-day queries or life-changing decisions that require significant planning.

At Red Search, we brought together all relevant search engine usage statistics in Australia to explore emerging trends, user behaviour, and how global and local events impact search patterns. Get up-to-date insights into how we navigate the massive Australian digital space, the factors influencing our search preferences, and how businesses can leverage effective and efficient campaigns to reach their audience and gain a competitive edge.

Global Search Engine Market Share 2024

As of July 2024, Google remains the leading search engine in terms of market share in Australia at 93.95%. Bing follows second with a massive gap at 4.48%, leaving the rest of the search engines behind at <1% of market share.

Source: Statcounter

The same trend is very noticeable on a global scale, with Google dominating the search engine market share at 91.02% and Bing shyly taking second place at 3.38%.

Source: Statcounter

Google’s Dominance: Well-Timed Rollouts Prove Effective

Google’s continued dominance can be traced back to its years of innovation and Google Algorithm Updates that improve the overall search experience. Rolling out well-timed updates like mobile-first and publishing Bard as Gemini allowed Google to be at the forefront of technological innovation and introduce its services right when users expect them.

Microsoft Bing and Other Competitors

Speaking of innovation, it’s hard not to turn our heads to Microsoft Bing. As the company that introduced Copilot for Windows back on February 7, a day after Google released Gemini, Microsoft has long been in business partnering with AI giant OpenAI to develop artificial intelligence solutions to make the search experience more seamless than ever.

However, it’s safe to say that Microsoft’s AI investment doesn’t show much effect on the search engine market share, as it doesn’t solely revolve around competing against Google but rather improving the user search experience across its other services, including Azure AI, Microsoft Cloud, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Copilot.

By shifting its focus on generative AI tools for business solutions and scalable AI services, Microsoft surpassed AU$49 billion in revenue, a net positive out of its AU$14.75 billion investment in OpenAI.

On the other hand, Ecosia, the tree-planting browser, remains a participant in Australia’s search engine market share. Even with a 0.1% search engine market share for Australia in July 2024, it’s worth noting that Ecosia remains in operation and is sustainable enough to continue its mission of planting trees in key reforestation areas.

Source: Statista

Across all countries, Ecosia has the biggest market share in Germany, currently at 0.81%. Its global activity, however, generated € 2,867,977 in June 2024 and financed 2,337,138 trees planted in Ethiopia, Mali, Madagascar, and other key reforestation locations globally.

Source: Ecosia Financial Reports

Duckduckgo, the search engine renowned for its privacy and commitment to not collecting user data, also remains active in the Australian search engine landscape with a 0.54% market share as of June 2024.

Mobile Search and SEO in 2024

Aussies spend about 6.8 hours every day searching the web, and more than half (55%) prefer browsing with their mobile devices over desktops and laptops. This reflects the ever-growing mobile search traffic and mobile-first SEO, prompting businesses and digital services to focus more on leveraging mobile-first indexing and on-the-go users.

How does the rest of the figures perform? Let’s take a deep dive into mobile search and mobile-first indexing.

Latest Mobile Search Market Share

The latest mobile search market share data reveals a staggering Google dominance over the rest of the market. As of July 2024, Google accounted for 98.56% of the market. DuckDuckGo ranks second in the list with a mere 0.45% market share, leaving the rest of the search engines taking less than 0.3% of the market.

Source: Statcounter

It’s safe to say that Google takes most of the mobile search traffic in Australia, making it more important to rank in Google’s mobile search results front page and optimise your website for mobile devices.

That means designing a webpage that’s easy to read on small screens, ensuring all pages load almost instantaneously, and producing rich content with images and infographics rather than massive chunks of text.

Mobile User Behaviour

In 2024, many Aussies have established their eCommerce habits and have been more attuned to mobile search thanks to the lockdowns and home-based work a couple of years ago. We’re seeing more stable traffic on general search and online shopping.

Let’s consider Google’s mobile search dominance and break down how Aussies use mobile search on a daily basis.

Our mobile usage research reported that Aussies rely on Google for many needs, from small everyday decisions to important choices involving finances, health, and education.

Here’s what we found out:

• 62.6% of Aussies use mobile search for general information
• 56.1% read how-tos and DIY tutorials on their phones
• 50.3% use their phones to search for eCommerce brands and products
• 39.3% use Google on their phones to look for travel and vacation destinations
• 34.4% look for healthcare products online
• 32.2% do their academic research and study-related searches on their smartphones

Mobile-First Indexing

Since its launch in 2016, Google has been crawling and indexing most of the web using its Googlebot Smartphone crawler, resulting in the number of sites inaccessible on mobile dwindling.

Google announced that the final trek of their mobile-first indexing rollout, starting July 5, 2024, will only index sites that Googlebot smartphones can crawl. If your website is not accessible with a smartphone, it won’t be indexed and cannot rank in Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Here are a few best practices on how you can provide the best mobile user experience:

• Using a responsive web design to display your content the best way across different devices
• Ensuring that Google can see lazy-loaded content 
• Using the same robots, meta tags, and metadata for mobile and desktop
• Making sure you’re not blocking the URL with the disallow rule so Google can crawl them
• Ensuring that mobile page content quality is as good as the desktop version.
• Using supported image and video formats 

Learn more about the best mobile-first practices on Google Search Central.

Google Search Usage Statistics 2024

As of the time of writing, 2.71 trillion Google searches were made globally in 2024. The latest data also claims that people worldwide make approximately 5.9 million searches every minute.

The Australian search landscape saw diverse trends for 2023 and early 2024. As of January 2024, 88.6% of Aussie internet users aged 16 to 64 have used search engines and web portals in the past month. 

Source: Global Digital Report

Moreover, Google remains the most visited website, garnering almost 1.5 billion monthly average visits, almost three times YouTube’s only 575 million monthly visitors.

Source: Global Digital Report

Knowing Google’s firm grip in the search market, these statistics further support that a reliable SEO campaign and mobile-optimised website allow businesses to tap a robust traffic channel and put their websites right where users need them.

Google’s Role in Consumer Behaviour

The same Global Digital Report study revealed that 74.3% of internet users aged 16 to 64 use the internet to find information, while 68% browse the web to research how to do stuff.

Looking further below the list, we find that 59.5% of Aussies research products and brands online, and 50.4% find new ideas and inspiration. This implies a growing population of eCommerce shoppers who would choose a brand for its values, product quality, and customer reviews, all of which are published on the web.

Source: Global Digital Report

What this means for businesses and eCommerce shops is that Aussies will gladly spend more if the brand pays attention to sustainability and is visible in Google searches. 67% of shoppers would buy from businesses beyond sustainability, and 52.8% of internet users aged 16 to 64 have purchased goods and services online.

Desktop vs Mobile Search in 2024

The latest Semrush figures reveal that mobile users tend to spend less time on websites, with only an average dwell time of 704 to 775 seconds. Desktop search, on the other hand, takes anywhere between 996 to 1,918 seconds per session.

Source: Semrush

This data shows that mobile users actually spend less time browsing and digesting content. Hence, we strongly recommend posting short, engaging content that grabs your readers’ attention and keeps them engaged.

Desktop searches, on the other hand, report significantly higher engagement times. That implies that desktop users are more receptive to in-depth and long-form content.

Tailoring your SEO campaign to each device allows you to align your content to the right audience and ensures your SEO efforts pay off by leveraging unique search behaviours.

How Mobile SERPs Differ from Desktop

With Google continuing to focus on mobile-first indexing and mobile searches surpassing desktop traffic, optimising for mobile is vital to any business that wants to reach its audience and be visible in Australia’s digital space in 2024.

Besides, mobile SERPs display prominent features and results that may be different from desktop ones. These include curated elements like local packs, and the People Also Ask section is more prominent and takes up more real estate space on mobile.

Mobile’s unique offerings and more tailored SERPs highlight the need for a mobile-first approach in SEO, website design, and content marketing. Think of optimising your site’s load speed and offering a seamless UX for mobile users and you’ll have a more responsive site that’s likely to rank with superior content and engagements.

Impact on Click-Through Rates

At this point, we’ve clearly established that mobile is taking over desktop search traffic. But how does this translate to website click-through rates? That is, how much traffic do the top-ranking sites get on mobile vs. desktop?

As of 2024, mobile click-through rates range from 2-5%, while desktop click-through rates record slightly lower figures at 1-3%. That said, mobile devices drive around 60-70% of total digital ad clicks, topping that off with two—to three-fold higher conversion rates.

In other words, mobile content marketing is more effective in engaging with user actions.

Besides, it’s worth noting that around 30% of desktop users globally have an ad-blocker installed, while only 7% of mobile devices have ad-blockers.

The sheer volume of mobile traffic and high engagement rate for video content and online purchases affect ad click-through rate trends, especially for eCommerce, where mobile traffic accounts for almost 49% of the global click-through rate.

On the other hand, desktop users account for only 41.5%, indicating a growing preference for using mobile devices to browse the net and engage with digital content or ads.

However, note that CTR differences between mobile and desktop also depend on the industry sector. While eCommerce shows a stronger CTR for mobile than desktop, the same may not be the case for other industries, as the audience has unique user behaviour and preferences.

Voice Search and Its Growing Importance

As of March 2024, 40% of respondents in Australian households own a Google Home smart speaker, fully embracing smart home devices and voice search capability. Following this list, 31% of households use Amazon Echo at home, while Google Next users account for 21% of the survey.

Only 19% of respondents claim to have used an Apple HomePod, showing a diverse market opposite to Apple’s grip in the mobile device market.

Source: Statista

Optimising for Voice Search

With voice search becoming more prevalent and embraced across Australian households, optimising for voice search allows businesses to reach more people along with text-based search.

On a global scale, the number of people using digital voice assistants grew rapidly from 3.25 billion users in 2019 to 2024 to 8.4 billion.

With that, here’s how you can optimise for voice search:

Keyword Research for Voice Search 

Voice search keywords differ slightly from text-based keywords. Focus on long-tail keywords that are very specific and typically have lower search volumes, such as “ways to brew Arabica coffee.”

You can also optimise your content for questions and conversational keywords that appeal more to voice search. Think of phrases such as:

• How to brew Arabica coffee at home
• How can I brew Arabica coffee without a coffee maker

While these keyword categories are distinct from each other, they often overlap and may have similar characteristics that are optimised for voice search. 

Voice Search Trends 2024

Now that we’ve clearly shown where voice search currently stands in Australia and the world let’s examine emerging trends in the industry and how users interact with voice search.

As of 2024, only 25 keywords trigger about 1 of 5 voice search queries (20%). These include question keywords such as how and what and common adjectives like best or easy.

Aside from question keywords, we also found out that voice search is slowly becoming more popular on eCommerce platforms, accounting for over AU$ 4.87 billion in global consumer spending. About 43% of voice-enabled device owners (smartphones, etc.) use voice search to shop.

It’s also interesting to note that consumers across age groups now use voice-enabled devices to help them make purchases, recording a 41% rise from 2018.

Source: Narvar

The Rise of Zero-Click Searches

Many SEOs and search marketers may have thought about whether users search for the pages where their sites could have ranked but ended up not sending a click anywhere—hence a zero-click search.

Let’s look at fresh data from larger areas, such as the US and EU regions, to get an idea of the volume of zero-click searches and whether these have implications for SEO.

In 2024 alone, almost 59.7% of EU Google searches and 58.5% of searches in America resulted in zero clicks. 37% of the time, the user decided to end the session entirely, while 22% of the time, they decided to change the search query to something else.

The latest data shows a decent drop in zero-click searches compared to 2020 when SparkToro reported that zero-click searches account for almost two-thirds of all search traffic.

How zero-click searches could affect SEO?

While it’s not easy to say whether both data used the same channels and niches to collect zero-click information, we can infer that a significant portion of traffic can lead to zero clicks.

However, that doesn’t narrow down your SEO opportunities, as voice search and other search elements are more effective in attracting and engaging users through your content.

The key to thriving in a zero-click environment is regularly monitoring your key performance indicators and making relevant adjustments. Focus on metrics that point to clicks, such as impressions and search position. That way, you could stay relevant in your target keywords and SERPs.

Google’s Featured Snippets & Instant Answers

Most zero-click searches are a result of Google’s SERP features, including featured snippets for quick questions, local packs for near-me searches, carousels for cooking recipes, and Google Shopping features for products.

It’s easy to think that featured snippets and instant answers drive higher zero-click searches, thereby robbing most sites of organic traffic. However, instead of abandoning SEO, keeping on providing key insights to your audience could land you a spot on featured snippets and earn you valuable traffic.

Organic Search vs Paid Search in 2024

Google’s generative AI experiences were recently rolled out in May 2024. Since then, many SEOs and businesses have wondered whether the search generative experience (SGE) results are stealing organic traffic from websites.

The short answer is no. While SGE generates quick answers, it still directs users to the best-ranked pages for more information.

As a result, click-through rates have remained minimal since 2023, as today’s users, on a global scale, slightly trust high-ranking pages more than the previous year.

In 2023, the top-ranking organic pages got a 39.6% CTR, slightly increasing to 39.8% in 2024. The same goes for the top 2 pages from 18.4% to 18.7%.

Paid search, on the other hand, saw a very slight decrease in CTR, from 1.7% to 1.6% CTR for the 1st paid position. While this is almost insignificant, fewer people check out sponsored or paid links and rely more on organic search results.

Source: FirstPageSage

Balancing Organic and Paid Strategies

Depending on your industry and SEO campaign, you can make the most out of both organic and paid strategies. Here’s how you can balance them and create a synergistic campaign that doesn’t hurt your overall traffic and visibility:

• Examine your existing metrics and learn more about your users’ behaviour. Identify which are the top-performing keywords and which ones need more work.

• Repurpose, reuse, and refresh old content to address content decay and boost SEO without starting from scratch.

• Focus on your search intent and provide clear, concise answers that immediately address your users’ needs.

• Audit your paid search campaign to determine whether it’s doing well or poorly for its cost and adjust accordingly. Focus on pain points that need work and adjustments.
• Pay attention to your technical SEO. Mobile-friendliness, site responsiveness, and correcting HTML or crawl issues will significantly boost your organic search ranking and may also improve your paid search performance.

Long-Term Benefits of Organic SEO

Keep in mind that only organic search results can land a spot on featured snippets. What that means is investing in purely organic search results is still your bread and butter, despite all of Google’s recent SERP feature innovations.

Besides, the more you focus on working on long-tail queries and content, the more chances you have at ranking on purely organic SERPs. The latest organic CTR data from Sixtrix showed that the click-through rate of the top organic page can go up to 34.2%, while the average CTR (different SERP formats) for position 1 is only somewhere around 27-28%.

Emerging Search Engine Trends to Watch

You may have heard of ChatGPT. That’s pretty much the buzzword of 2023, as the year saw a massive surge in AI tools, LLMs, and AI chatbots for marketers. These tools have become essential, if not pivotal, for streamlining SEO processes, from content generation to customer service.

While AI’s impact on search has been groundbreaking, we haven’t seen drastic changes in user search behaviour. Most users still rely on Google for day-to-day queries, and organic traffic remained robust and stable despite the rollout of AI tools.

AI and Machine Learning in Search

The most direct and biggest impact of Machine learning and AI is streamlining content generation. AI boosts your content scale, but providing high-quality and original value is equally important.

Google allows appropriate use of AI and automation, as it can assist with developing high-quality content in exciting ways. However, it frowns on AI content campaigns that aim to manipulate search rankings.

The real threat of AI and machine learning in search boils down to flooding the internet with generic AI content. When everyone relies on the same AI tools, we’ll see a pattern in search results, and the same thing will be generated and twisted over and over.

Content creators should complement AI research with human creativity and valuable insights. The goal is to provide the most human and direct answer to a search intent or query. 

Besides, despite the advent of AI and large language models (LLMs), the demand and income rates of senior writers continuously increase.

The Role of Video Search

Online platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and now Google, are boosting their short-form content. Short-form videos are everywhere, and they’re expected to account for almost 90% of internet traffic by 2024, marking a preference of consumer online media habits towards shorter, more engaging, and more digestible content.

How Businesses Invest in Video Content for Search

Looking into a larger scale, 65% of brands expect to produce brand videos in 2024, with more than half (53%) planning to create short-form videos for social media, a staggering 10% increase in demand over the past year.

Source: Vidico State of Video Marketing 2024

Furthermore, the latest survey reports that over 38% of brands allocate 25-50% of their marketing budget to produce video content. To put it into perspective, 41% of businesses spent the same allocation to their video content budget last year, showing a slight dip YOY but nothing too significant.

Source: Vidico State of Video Marketing 2024

Breaking that down into actual amounts (in USD), 5% of businesses spend more than $20,000 in video content creation, with the majority (27%) allocating $1,000 to $4,999 for video content per month, which is consistent with the past year.

Source: Vidico State of Video Marketing 2024

When it comes to the frequency of video content production, 68% of marketers report publishing between 0 and 10 videos per month, while 26% create anywhere from 11 to 20 videos for the same period.

These figures highlight that video content is growing and becoming a reliable avenue for content marketing as more people worldwide search for and engage with video content in 2024.

Privacy and Search Engines

The data privacy landscape for 2024 continues to transform as new trends, brought about by AI tools, data regulation, and legal privacy enforcement, aim to protect sensitive information.

Significant strides in data privacy laws have been made in 2023, turning the wheel for responsible data handling and privacy. Here are a few key breakthroughs and key events in the past year that led to emerging privacy trends in 2024:

• Global Data Privacy Regulations: Governments worldwide have actively strengthened data privacy regulations to protect consumers’ rights and interests.

• Privacy-by-Design Solutions: Tech companies responded by implementing privacy-by-design principles, making data protection a key aspect of their products rather than a mere afterthought.

• High-Profile Data Breaches: Data security was challenged in the past year after a few notable data breaches globally, prompting the need for robust security measures.

• Right to Be Forgotten: Relevant jurisdictions worldwide expanded the right to be forgotten, allowing individuals to request the deletion of their personal data.
• AI and Machine Learning: By far the most recent breakthrough, AI and machine learning have made strides to automate and enhance data privacy measures.

Now, let’s look at key search privacy trends in 2024 that will reshape or reinforce how Google processes personal data and protects user privacy.

Privacy Regulation for AI Remains a Top-Priority

Artificial intelligence remains a focal point in today’s digital landscape. We expect 2024 to be a year of advancements and breakthroughs in AI innovation and governance, including the EU AI Act, which will become effective in 2026.

As more data protection and privacy laws occur, businesses leveraging AI will face new opportunities and challenges. While AI offers unprecedented automation and data analytics potential, you must be able to manage it responsibly and within stringent privacy regulations.

Cookie Usage and Data Protection Laws Expand Worldwide

In 2024, Google will allow users to make informed choices about blocking cookies in their Chrome browser. Cookies track website activities and help brands display relevant ads to users. Google initially planned to deprecate third-party cookies altogether but updated its decision in July 2024.

These decisions are further supported and reinforced by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) as the EDPB’s task force focuses more on redefining cookie usage and regulating how businesses obtain and manage cookie consent, demanding businesses to comply with rapidly evolving privacy regulations.

Despite privacy and data protection laws starting from regional scales, it’s estimated that roughly 75% of the world’s population will have their personal and sensitive data covered under modern data privacy regulations. That includes their search activity, browsing history, past engagements, eCommerce shopping payments, and product purchase history.

But how do these trends impact user behaviour in search engine usage? Besides, what does all of this mean for marketers?

Simply put, businesses should ensure that all SEO and content marketing campaigns comply with data privacy regulations and provide options for users to opt out of data tracking.

In turn, this opens a new opportunity to be transparent about data usage in 2024 and focus on building trust with your customers.

Conclusion

The key trends and emerging breakthroughs for search engine usage in 2024, from video content marketing, mobile-first optimisation, aiming for position zero (featured snippets & local packs), and leveraging voice search, all point towards establishing trust and more genuine relationships with your customers.

Search engine optimisation has seen drastic changes after the dawn of AI, mobile-first optimisation, and increasing data privacy concerns. 

However, it is important to stay current and adapt to new information and user behaviour trends. Australia’s search landscape now revolves around building trust and fostering relationships with digital natives and vigilant users who engage with content that aligns with their morals and values.

Conduct an audit of your current SEO performance to discover how your business can adapt to these trends and uncover potential pain points in your website performance. Then, get a personalised SEO strategy that best fits your current position and long-term goals.

Call us at 1300 101 712 and request an in-depth SEO audit or a free consultation.