WebProNews

While Google continued to zoom along in the US search engine market, MSN/Live Search's downturn ran counter to analysis site Compete.com's prediction last month. Compete's Jeremy Crane had predicted some continued upward momentum for Microsoft's search services, after last month's encouraging movement. Instead, Live Search and its MSN counterpart moved downward instead.

"My original supposition was that the gains were perhaps driven by the consumer launch of Vista," Crane wrote. "If that was the case I wouldn’t expect it to taper off after only one month … perhaps but not likely."

So why did Live have a strong boost in February before slipping by a percentage point in March? Crane could be wrong about Vista-driven MSN/Live usage tapering off; if anything, it looks even more likely that Vista users tried out MSN/Live for a while, before switching to a different search option.

Those switches could have been driven by a couple of common software installs. Adding Java to a PC gives people the choice of installing Google's Toolbar or Desktop. Install Adobe Acrobat or any Yahoo product, and it's likely the new default search will be Yahoo if people just click through the process.

By the numbers, Compete put Google's March 2007 search share at 65 percent. Yahoo followed at 20 percent, while MSN/Live took 9 percent. Ask and AOL held serve at 3 percent and 2 percent, respectively.

"Google just keeps going and going … almost puts the Energizer Bunny to shame," said Crane.