Google and Microsoft's respective shares of the U.S. search market remained relatively unchanged in February, according to new estimates from comScore.
Google,
Microsoft, and Yahoo largely retained their respective shares of the U.S.
search market in February, according to comScore.
The research
firms estimates pegged Googles share as blipping upward from 66.2 percent in
January to 66.4 percent in February. Microsoft also held relatively steady
during the same period, rising only from 15.2 percent to 15.3 percent. Yahoo
saw its share dip slightly, from 14.1 percent to 13.8 percent.
There are some
caveats to that data. Under the terms of a 10-year agreement signed in the
summer of 2009, Microsofts Bing powers Yahoos back-end search, while Yahoo
acts as the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies
search advertisers. Essentially, that folds Yahoos search-engine share into
that of Microsofts, bringing the latters slice of the market to 29.1 percent.
Thats not
exactly an existential threat to Google, but it does represent progress of a
sort for Microsoft. In the summer of 2009, few of the tech industrys leading
luminaries expressed hope that Bingoriginally code-named Kumocould endure for
long in a search-engine arena handily dominated by Google. That June, Yahoo's then-CEO
Carol Bartz told the audience at the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch U.S.
Technology Conference that Microsoft would never get scale in search, and
that interest in Bing would be temporary.
However, Bing
managed to gain market share in fits and starts. That could be at least partly
due to Microsofts decision to focus less on broad keyword searchGoogles area
of expertiseand more on specific verticals, such as shopping and entertainment.
Meanwhile,
Yahoo is struggling to adapt to a changing marketplace. According to a March 5
report from AllThingsD, the company is on the verge of
instituting a round of layoffs on top of a broader corporate restructuring. A
source close to Yahoo told eWEEK
that the company had already started letting employees go.
Yahoo saw its
search-engine market share surpassed by Google some years ago. Now, it seems as
if Microsoft is also widening the gap. The big question now is whether Googles
recent attempt to leverage user data, in an effort to personalize search,
will persuade search-engine users to take another look at Bing. A recent survey
conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that around 73
percent of Internet users do not want search engines to keep track of their
searches and use that information to personalize future results.
Follow Nicholas Kolakowski on Twitter
Nicholas Kolakowski is a staff editor at eWEEK, covering Microsoft and other companies in the enterprise space, as well as evolving technology such as tablet PCs. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Playboy, WebMD, AARP the Magazine, AutoWeek, Washington City Paper, Trader Monthly, and Private Air. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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