Web Search Portals & Other Information Services
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 6,900 web search portals and other information services establishments in the US operate websites that use a search engine to generate and maintain extensive databases of internet addresses and content in an easily searchable format. Web search portals often provide additional internet services, such as email, links to other websites, auctions, news, and other limited content. Other information services include news clipping and monitoring services, telephone-based recorded information providers, and stock photo agencies.
Competition from AI-Powered Search Engines
A new crop of AI-powered search engines is poised to redefine users’ search experience and challenge industry leaders Bing and Google SGE (Search Generative Experience).
Cybersecurity Threats
Hundreds of thousands of cyberattacks are launched every day including phishing and hacking schemes, distributed denial of service (DDoS), malware attacks, and data breaches that could disrupt search engine operations, expose user data, and damage a web search portal's reputation with users and shareholders.
Industry size & Structure
The number of employees and revenue varies significantly from firm to firm.
- The web search portals and all other information services industry consists of about 6,900 establishments that employ about 152,000 workers and generate about $121 billion annually.
- The industry is concentrated with the four largest firms accounting for 54% of industry revenue.
- Google controls more than 90% of the global internet search market and an 89% share in North America.
- Google processes approximately 99,000 search queries every second, resulting in about 8.5 billion searches daily and roughly 2 trillion global searches annually.
- The largest search portals are owned by technology and telecommunications firms: Alphabet (Google), Microsoft (Bing), Verizon (Yahoo!) and Facebook Business. Large vertically-integrated portals include Kayak (travel), Amazon and eBay (e-commerce), LinkedIn (jobs) and WebMD (health).
Industry Forecast
Web Search Portals & Other Information Services Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Mar 13, 2025 - AI-enabled Search Competition Intensifies
- Search firm Duckduckgo has launched the live version of an AI assistant that can provide quick answers to users’ questions. Duckduckgo's AI Assistant is similar to Google’s AI Overviews, which launched earlier in 2025 to provide summaries of traditional search results at the top of the list of search results. Duckduckgo users who want to ask follow-up questions can do so via the built-in Duck.ai chatbot.
- Data centers used around 2% of global electricity in 2022, with consumption projected to potentially double by 2026, according to The International Energy Agency. Artificial intelligence (AI) growth is accelerating electricity demand, as AI server racks consume around four times more energy than conventional servers. Power constraints may affect internet publishing and web search portal industry expansion. The Pacific Northwest’s power grid could be pushed beyond its limits in five years by the electricity demands of the data center industry, regional power planners reported in July. The region would need to find more power sources to avoid struggling to keep lights on while also phasing out fossil fuels and meeting environmental mandates to protect salmon, according to a Northwest Power and Conservation Council report. Opposition to data center construction may increase in areas where power shortages may occur.
- Generative AI is ruining vast swaths of the internet with fake content, according to Google researchers. A yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper by the researchers found that the great majority of generative AI users are using the technology to "blur the lines between authenticity and deception" by posting fake or doctored AI content, such as images or videos, on the internet. The problem is being compounded by increasingly advanced and readily available generative AI systems "requiring minimal technical expertise," according to the researchers, and this situation is twisting people's "collective understanding of socio-political reality or scientific consensus."
- Web search portal and other information service industry employment and wages for nonsupervisory employees increased slightly during the first month of 2025, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web search portal and other information service industry sales are forecast to grow at a 3.04% compounded annual rate from 2025 to 2029, slower than the growth of the overall economy, according to Inforum and the Interindustry Economic Research Fund, Inc.
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