How Many People Use Google in 2020 – 11 FAQs Answered

Google was born back in 1996 when Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed a concept for a search engine they were going to call BackRub.The rest, as they say, is history.

Today, Google is synonymous with internet search. The search engine controls has the biggest market share by far and beyond being a part of our daily life (note the expression ‘google it’), it serves as an instrumental marketing tool for businesses.

So, read on to learn the answers to the most frequently asked questions about the King of Search Engines, including how many people use Google and then some! While you might expect some of the answers, others will surprise you (they surely surprised us when we did the research).

The short answer would be billions. Let’s dig a little deeper though — back at the turn of the millennium, Google was handling only 32.8 million searches per day or 14 billion searches per year. Just over a decade later, in 2012, Google surpassed 3.3 billion daily searches and nowadays, the number of Google searches per day is much more staggering.

Google has been sitting on the Search throne for a long time — currently, it holds 92.06% of the search engine market share worldwide. This breaks down to approximately 72% of the desktop market and 92% of the mobile search market share. The total number of google searches grows between 10% and 15% every year. 

(Stat Counter)

Holding the majority of the search engine market, Google processes a huge amount of searches. The average number of daily Google searches is 5.8 billion which translates into 2 trillion global searches per year. 

(Internet Live Stats)

With so many daily searches, one must wonder how many searches Google processes every second. According to Internet Live Stats, there are 83,388 Google queries per second. Pretty impressive, right?

(Internet Live Stats)

As Google user statistics show, Americans (27%) use Google the most, followed by people from India (8.7%). The distribution of global online visitors to Google is 4.6% in Japan and 3.6% in China. Let’s keep in mind though that in China, Baidu is king. According to statistics on the number of Google users worldwide, the search engine is the least popular in Brazil. The country accounts for 2.8% of global Google visitors. 

(Statista)

We turn to Google several times a day whether it is to resolve an argument with friends, look up where to buy dog food, or just to find a tasty recipe for the day. Accordingly, an average person makes about three or four searches every day. While that doesn’t seem like a lot, it translates to approximately 120 searches a month per person. 

(Ardor SEO)

Google’s answer to Facebook, social networking service Google Plus, had noted 198 million users as of 2018. Though it experienced exponential growth in its early years, the platform’s popularity subsequently declined and was unsuccessfully redefined multiple times which eventually led to low engagement. In April 2019, Google+ was finally shut down for personal and business use but continued to be available as Google+ for G Suite. 

(Wikipedia)

Google Chrome debuted back in 2008 and has since been reinventing the browsing game. Though the speculated number is 2 billion active installs across desktop and mobile, the last number confirmed by Google is that the most popular browser has one billion active installs. 

(TechCrunch)

Launched in 2008, Google Maps has become an indispensable mapping service for many of us. Today, over a billion users use Google Maps every month. Given that the app provides satellite imagery, street maps, aerial photography, street view, real-time traffic condition, and route planning, one can easily understand why it’s so popular.

(PPC Land)

Google’s first page lists 10 results. That said, not all results get the same attention. In fact, the number-one search result gains 55% of organic click-throughs while the second dramatically drops to 14%. The click-through rate goes lower with the third-ranked results gaining 10%, fourth-ranked 7%, fifth-ranked 6%, etc. So, the higher your business ranks on Google’s first page, the better.

(Blue Corona)

The software needed to run all Google’s services spans some 2 billion lines of code. To give you a sense of scale, that compares to about 50 million lines for Microsoft’s Windows which is regarded as one of the most complicated software. What’s even more fascinating is that the 2 billion lines that drive Google are in one place — they drive Google Search, Maps, Google+, Gmail, Calendar, Docs, YouTube, and other Google Internet service sitting in a single repository available to all Google engineers. 

(Wired)

With a global monthly volume of over 4 million searches, “what is my IP” is the most asked question on Google. With little over 1.8 million global searches “what is love” comes as the second most asked question and “what time it is” is third with 1.5 million searches. Questions like “what men want”, “what song is this” and “what time is sunset” complete the list of the most searched questions on Google. 

(Keyword Tool)

Hopefully, we helped you get some clarity regarding the number of Google users and just how big Google really is. In the meantime, stay tuned for everything that is yet to come for the tech giant.

Resources: Stat Counter, Internet Live Stats, Statista, Ardor SEO, Wikipedia, Tech Crunch, PPC Land, Blue Corona, Wired, Keyword Tool