U.S. Internet users watched 32.4 billion videos in January 2010 according to a release of video rankings by ComScore. Yet the total search volume for January was 23.1 billion searches, according to search engine rankings also released by ComScore. This means there are 53% more video views online than searches for information.

More interesting stats

YouTube was the dominant video website with 12.7 billion videos watched by Americans in January. The average YouTube viewer watched 93.4 videos. This represents a 50% increase over a year ago. The duration of the average online video was 4.1 minutes.

The top video sites were:

1. YouTube 12.8 billion videos
2. Hulu 903 million videos
3. Microsoft 492 million
4. Yahoo 435 million

Google is the dominant search engine with 65.5% (Feb report) share of US core searches. Core searches are searches done on the 5 major search engines. Core searches account for approximately 65% of all searches done by US online users. Other sites such as YouTube, Craigslist and eBay account for the other 35% of searches.

The 5 core search engines for February were:

1. Google 9.5 billion searches
2. Yahoo 2.4 billion searches
3. Bing / MSN 1.7 billion searches
4. Ask 0.5 billion searches
5. AOL 0.4 billion searches

What does all this mean?

Video certainly does not replace the need for search. Videos are easy and free to place on sites such as YouTube and then easy to embed in a website. Website owners need to recognize that their web visitors expect video to help them understand your offering and your value proposition. Video is a conversion tool that should be used by every business today.

Related posts:

1. Video Optimization Tips
2. The Secret Formula For Getting YouTube Traffic
3. Use Video to Add “Wow” to Your Website
4. Optimizing Using Video SEO
5. YouTube’s New Video Editor: No Software Required