Share of Search
SEOAlso: Search Share · SOS
Quick definition
Share of Search is the percentage of all search demand in a category that goes to your brand name specifically, rather than a competitor's or a generic term. It's calculated from search volume data and used as an early signal of changes in market share before sales figures catch up.
A single month means little. Track this figure quarterly and watch the direction of movement, not the absolute number.
How it varies across Australia
Share of Search moves slower than paid media metrics and faster than actual market share data. In most Australian categories, the largest player by revenue also holds the largest branded search share, but the gap narrows or widens months before market share figures confirm it.
Explore brand and positioning benchmarks across Australian industries →What it actually means
Share of Search asks a simple question with a useful answer. Out of everyone searching for your category, how many are searching for you by name rather than a generic term or a competitor?
This is different from brand awareness, which is usually measured through surveys and tells you what people say they remember. Share of Search measures what people actually type into Google, which is a stronger signal because it costs the searcher effort.
The metric works as a proxy for market share because branded search behaviour tends to lead revenue by a few months. If your share of category searches is climbing while a competitor's is flat, that usually shows up in market share data later. This is different again from share of voice, which measures advertising exposure rather than organic demand.
The catch is data quality. Search volume tools like Google Trends give you relative figures, not absolute ones, and smaller categories produce noisy results. Branded search is also easy to inflate temporarily with a big campaign, so a single month's spike means less than a sustained trend across a year.
Share of Search moves before market share does. By the time the sales data confirms it, you've already lost the quarter.
How to calculate it
Share of Search = (Your brand's search volume divided by total category search volume) x 100
Worked example. Your brand gets 8,000 monthly searches. The three main competitors get 6,000, 4,000 and 2,000 respectively, for a category total of 20,000. Your Share of Search = (8,000 divided by 20,000) x 100 = 40 percent.
The Australian context
Google Trends and most keyword research tools work well for large Australian categories but get noisy fast for narrower ones, simply because the population searching is smaller than in the United States or United Kingdom. A category with only a few thousand monthly searches nationally can swing wildly month to month for reasons that have nothing to do with brand strength.
For Australian challenger brands going up against global players, Share of Search is often the only affordable way to track competitive movement, since formal market share data is expensive or doesn't exist at a local level for many categories.
Where people get this wrong
Related terms
Common questions
How is Share of Search different from Share of Voice?
Share of Voice measures how much advertising exposure your brand gets compared to competitors, usually across paid media. Share of Search measures organic demand, what people actually type into a search engine. One reflects spend, the other reflects genuine interest.
What tools do I need to track Share of Search?
Google Trends works for a rough relative view. For actual search volume numbers, a keyword research tool that reports monthly search volume for your brand name and your competitors' names against the category term works better.
Can Share of Search predict future sales?
It's a leading indicator, not a guarantee. Rising branded search often precedes market share gains by a few months, but conversion, pricing and distribution still decide whether that demand turns into revenue.
Why did my Share of Search suddenly change?
Check for one-off causes first. A competitor's ad campaign, a news event, or a product recall can all move branded search volume temporarily without reflecting a real shift in underlying brand strength.
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About New Rebellion
New Rebellion is a marketing intelligence consultancy. We build tools, score Australian businesses on how their marketing actually performs, and publish Debrief every day. This dictionary is part of how we work in the open.
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