The 2019 SEO Year in Review, by the Numbers

December marks the end of the year, and with it come the year-end recaps and blooper reels. SEO deserves its own review of the past 12 months too. From the most searched queries to the criteria Google used to rank websites, here is Référenceur’s SEO year in review for 2019!

SEO and User Experience Take Center Stage

Google, the Search Engine With a 94% Share

No surprises again this year for the world’s most widely used search engine. Google held on to its lead, with a market share of about 94% according to figures widely cited at the time, and most of the world’s searches in 2019 happened on Google.

Every second, close to 70,000 searches are made on Google around the world. Numbers like these show that being visible on Google matters more than ever, whatever your industry!

SEO at the Heart of Marketing Strategies

In 2019, the data again showed how much it matters to rank near the top of the search results. According to figures shared that year, 75% of searchers never go past the first page (the top 10 results). Within that group, 28% of mobile users and 35% of desktop users stop at the very first result.

In 2019, Google also changed how it reads queries. In October, it rolled out BERT, a language model that helps it understand each word in the context of the whole query, rather than matching keywords one by one. The change fits a clear trend: more and more queries contain four words or more.

The Most Closely Watched SEO Factors

Here are five factors that weighed heavily on rankings in 2019, in line with what SEO pros said in a 2019 survey of ranking factors:

• The overall relevance of the content on each page: thanks to an algorithm that uses artificial intelligence, Google shows searchers pages that match the intent behind their query.
• Site quality and backlinks: beyond individual pages, Google also looks at the site as a whole and ranks it based on its quality and reputation.
• The phrases and keywords used: even though Google takes context into account, it still favors answers that match the words and phrases searchers type.
• Domain reputation: sites are also ranked based on their reputation and the authority of their domain.
• Mobile-friendliness: most searches now happen on mobile, so sites must optimize their layout for mobile devices.

The pages ranking in first position met these criteria, and their content, judged high-quality, averaged around 2,000 words.

Another factor Google paid attention to this year was site speed. A slow site keeps visitors waiting, and that means lost traffic. Our website speed optimization checklist shows where to start.

While 47% of internet users expected a page to load in under two seconds, the data showed that a single second of delay could cost a site up to 11% of its page views and 7% of its conversions!

According to the same figures, speeding up a site by just 0.4 seconds could increase visits by 9% and help it climb two positions in the search results!

SEO Pays Off

SEO may still feel abstract to many people, but these 365 days showed once again that a site optimized for both SEO and user experience keeps visitors coming back.

Since 79% of shoppers who have a bad experience on a website say they won’t return, improving your site is essential to staying visible online.

What Did You Search for on Google This Year? A Look at 2019’s Trends

No year-end recap would be complete without the most searched topics of the past 12 months. Time for a quick #throwback2019, courtesy of Google Trends.

The Top Trending Searches in the United States

In the U.S., Disney+ (Disney Plus), the streaming service launched in November, topped Google’s list of trending searches for 2019. It was followed by searches about the deaths of actor Cameron Boyce and rapper Nipsey Hussle, Hurricane Dorian, and pop-culture events such as Avengers: Endgame and the final season of Game of Thrones. The iPhone 11 also made the list.

The World’s Most Searched People and Events

Worldwide, the most searched topic was Julen, the little boy who fell into a well in Spain in January 2019. Searches also spiked after the deaths of Karl Lagerfeld and of actors Cameron Boyce and Luke Perry, while soccer star Neymar rounded out the global ranking.

Throughout the year, searches followed trends and the news. Whatever people are looking for, Google’s goal remains the same: to be an “answer engine” that rewards the best-built sites with the top spots in its results. A 2019 study even found that about half of searches ended without a single click.

Is being visible on Google one of your New Year’s resolutions for 2020? Référenceur, a French-speaking SEO agency from Belgium and Luxembourg that works with U.S. businesses remotely, can help you keep it. Get a free assessment of your site.

Where Things Stand in 2026

BERT was later joined by MUM, and both are now part of how Google understands queries. User experience also gained more weight: the page experience update brought Core Web Vitals into Google’s ranking systems in 2021.