Google and Bing gain strength while Yahoo falters

by Stevie Smith - Dec 17 2009, 06:06

November’s figures for the savagely contested Internet search market have been released by research specialist comScore. And, while the share breakdown reveals a further boost for Google’s ongoing dominance, it also shows there is plenty of movement spread across the trailing pack.

More pointedly, while California-based Google Inc. enjoyed a U.S month-on-month increase of 0.2 percent in November, which equates to a market share of 65.6 percent and some 9.5 billion search queries for the month, second-placed Yahoo Inc. lost 0.5 percent of its momentum and dropped to a share percentage of 17.5 and 2.5 billion queries.

Bing, software giant Microsoft’s recently repackaged and re-branded search engine, managed to secure a 0.4 percent gain when gauged against October’s figures, which resulted in the third-placed search platform breaking into double figures with a 10.4 percent share and 1.5 billion searches.

Following some way behind the sector’s main players, comScore’s numbers show Ask.com lost 0.1 percent in November and ended the month on a 3.8 percent share (548 million searches), while AOL.com also dropped 0.1 percent for a total of 2.8 percent (401 million searches).

It’s worth noting that Yahoo and Microsoft’s share could soon be merged following the expected rubberstamping of a deal between the two technology heavyweights, which will result in Bing powering Yahoo’s engine.

The joint search deal presently rests in the hands of government regulators in the United States with a decision likely by the close of 2010’s second quarter.

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