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February was a quiet month for the search market; we’re not going to suggest any companies either break out the champagne or fire their CEOs as a result of the small changes that took place. Still, for those who are curious, comScore believes it was Google and Bing that came out looking like winners.
Google managed to increase its share of the U.S. search market to 65.5 percent, up from 65.4 percent in January, according to comScore’s data. Bing, meanwhile, accomplished a more impressive feat (in overall terms, and especially in relation to its size) by grabbing 0.2 percent of market share.
That put Bing in control of 11.5 percent of the market, up from 11.3 percent the month before.
Yahoo’s share of the search market then decreased, heading from 17.0 percent to 16.8 percent. Which is embarrassing, but not yet catastrophic, as the company’s partnership with Microsoft moves towards completion.
The interesting thing will be if Bing and Yahoo keep trading share. Also, of course, if Google keeps increasing its dominance. We’ll be sure to cover comScore’s next report to see if any trends have emerged.
What I found niteresting is that Bing is doing this good for so long. I thought after some time they would fall back down.
I have seen a large increase in advertising by both Bing and Yahoo as I am sure many others have. What surprises me is that Google seems to avoid the mass media advertising (aside from a super bowl ad). Yet, they continue to dominate the market. Is it due to their integration into websites/software/mobile devices, or just that they have grown trendy and have stayed current?
For Microsoft / Yahoo going forward I think the disapointing thing is that, as mentioned, they are just trading market share between themselves. Googles growth has always been through word of mouth, whereas Google / Yahoo have tended to be advertising led. So with Bing upping their advertising its likely they will continue to take share away from Yahoo, but long term this won’t do much for the industry competition.