In the UK, Google is overwhelmingly the dominant search engine with approximately 87% of all searches performed via the search engine (see Guardian article link - stats from Hitwise UK - June 2008). This figure represented almost a 10% increase in search traffic from 12 months before. Yahoo searches fell to 4.1% from 8.6% over the same period whilst MSN and ASK had around 3.7% and 3.0% respectively.
Link: Read more on the Guardian Blog (statistics source: Hitwise)
What this means for search engine marketing in the UK
With Google at least likely to retain if not further develop its dominant position for search in the UK this means that any Search Engine Marketing strategy must place Google at its core. For search engine otpimisation plans it's your performance in Google that matters most and for search engine PPC programmes it is Google Adwords that really counts.
This is not to say you should ignore Yahoo, MSN and ASK. If you have the budget then it's certainly worth targetting these other search engines indeed its possible that competition for some pay per click keywords might be less intense on these search engines. However with Google currently operating a near monopoly on search it's important that you cover your presence on it as a priority.
