Americans conduct 137bn searches in 2008

US web searches almost reached the 137 billion mark in 2008, according to new figures.

Statistics from comScore's Digital Year In Review report for 2008 reveal that 21 per cent more online queries were made by US web users last year compared with 2007.

"Search query growth was driven largely by an increase in searches per searcher, which rose 16 per cent from the previous year, while [the] number of unique searchers grew six per cent," the report said.

Google continued to dominate the US search landscape in 2008, accounting for almost 85 billion searches and about 90 per cent of total market growth during the 12-month period.

The report also suggested that display ads started to decline in performance last year, while online video viewing soared.

In the UK, Google saw 32.9 million unique visitors during December 2008, making it the most popular website overall, according to separate figures released by comScore earlier this week.