Google holds approximately 90% of global search market share. For U.S.-based healthcare practices, this means Google is where essentially all SEO investment should be concentrated. The remaining search engines (Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo) represent enough combined volume to warrant baseline optimization — but none justify separate SEO strategies.
Search Engine Market Share (2025)
What This Means for Healthcare SEO Strategy
Optimize for Google. Everything else follows. The technical and content factors that drive Google rankings — site speed, mobile usability, E-E-A-T signals, structured data, local citations — translate to Bing and Yahoo rankings automatically. You don’t need a separate Bing strategy.
The Bing Exception: Why It Still Matters for Healthcare
Bing’s user base skews older (55+) and higher-income — two demographics with higher healthcare utilization. For practices serving older patients (orthopedics, cardiology, primary care, hearing health), Bing represents a meaningful secondary channel. Bing Places for Business is the equivalent of Google Business Profile and worth claiming and verifying.
AI Search Engines: The Emerging Variable
ChatGPT (with web access), Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews represent a new layer of search behavior — particularly for health information research. These systems pull from authoritative, well-structured web content. Healthcare practices with strong E-E-A-T signals (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, trustworthiness), clear structured data, and comprehensive content are better positioned to appear in AI-generated responses.
The optimization playbook for AI search visibility overlaps heavily with traditional healthcare SEO — quality content, proper schema markup, authoritative citations. This is not a separate strategy; it’s an extension of the same one.
Action Items for Healthcare Practices
Learn more about how Direction approaches healthcare search visibility across Google and beyond.