As their display prophets foresaw, it came to be that Google ruled all online advertising. While it’s not surprising to hear Google dominated search revenue (a 59.6% share in 1Q11, a tad bit above 59.1% in 4Q10), the latest stats from market researcher IDC also show that Google passed Yahoo! in display revenue during the first quarter of 2011.
It’s actually the first time in Internet history that Yahoo! has been knocked out of the top spot — surely not an event they’re celebrating in Y-town.
The Google Display Network benefitted from both increased display spend and a nice bump in revenue — its percentage of display revenue share increased from 13.3% in 4Q10 to 14.7% in 1Q11. Yahoo!’s share, on the other hand, declined from 13.6% to 12.3% over the same time period.