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Google's hold on the search engine market continues. In a report released by WebSideStory.com today, it was revealed that Google is the highest-ranking search engine in terms of search referral market share.

As of March 25, 2004, Google claims a 41% market share of search engine users. This number is up from last year's 35% share.

Search referral percentage measures the proportion of visitor traffic a search site sends to other sites on the Web. The percentage includes traffic from paid keywords, unpaid search results, and AdSense ads that appear on Google's site.

Geoff Johnston, a WebSideStory analyst who tracks global Internet user trends, said, "Google's share of search referral in the U.S. continues to grow dramatically. Google finally surpassed Yahoo in late 2002 and the gap is widening. Yahoo has made several strategic moves this year, but it remains to be seen if it can regain the ground it has lost."

A breakdown of the search referral market share among the 3 major competitors appears below.

Search Engine U.S. Search Referral Percentage on Tues., 3-23-04 U.S. Search Referral Percentage on Tues., 3-25-03 U.S. Search Referral Percentage on Tues., 3-26-02 U.S. Search Referral Percentage on Tues., 3-27-01 Google 40.91 35.99 28.86 11.93 Yahoo! 27.40 30.95 36.65 36.86 MSN 19.57 17.83 14.53 14.69

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