comScore’s statistics concerning the search market in January have been released, and while they may not quite turn the search world on its head, some people are likely to find them disorienting.   Google’s share, for example, went down. 

Yes, according to comScore (via Henry Blodget), Google did not manage to march closer to a share of 100 percent between December and January.  Instead, it slipped from 63.5 percent to 63.0 percent.  Google’s investors might be especially unhappy to hear this considering that its stock was downgraded yesterday.

Yahoo, meanwhile, made a gain of the same amount, with its share of the search market increasing from 20.5 percent in December to 21.0 percent in January.  So Google’s now an even three times Yahoo’s size in the U.S., which is less embarrassing than some of the ratios we’ve seen before.  Carol Bartz is off to a decent start.

Finally, there’s Microsoft, which surprisingly enough had an all right month, too.  comScore found that Microsoft’s search market share rose from 8.3 to 8.5 percent, perhaps due to all the hubbub surrounding the development and upcoming release of Windows 7.

Shocking?  Not really.  But if the recession continues and there are another few months’ worth of reports like this, don’t discount the possibility of some of the less mentally balanced search experts picking up "the end is near" signs.