DazzlinDonna has done some comparison of the big three:
It’s not often that I can truly compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges when looking at search engine stats. It’s also not often that I rank #1 for a major keyword phrase for all 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo, Live). I’ve got quite a few major phrases that aren’t #1 across the board, but are scattered about at #2, #3, etc. But even one ranking down means you are no longer comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges. And sure, I’ve got lots of long-tail phrases that are #1 across all three – everyone has that. But the traffic is so minimal for each of those phrases, that comparing stats isn’t very trustworthy at that point. But if a phrase sends a million users/month, and it is #1 across all 3 search engines, I’d say the stats associated with that phrase will be pretty darn accurate.
Since I hit #1 for that kind of phrase across all three search engines this month, I thought it would be a great time to see just what percentage of traffic the search engines sent me. The results are glaring.
Google – 83.33%
Yahoo – 11.26%
Live/MSN – 5.40%