Google Search Stays 65% Course, Bing Closes on Yahoo

Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) search market share rose slightly to 65.6 percent in the U.S. through October, from 65.3 percent through September (NASDAQ: SCOR), according to new research from comScore.

The search leader grew share a tad, two months after falling to 64.8 percent in August, which was its lowest since September 2009. Google has consistently blanketed the 65 percent search share market for a few years, one reason it is under antitrust scrutiny by the Justice Department.

Yahoo’s (NASDAQ:YHOO) share fell to 15.2 percent for the month from 15.5 percent, marking a new low for the embattled Internet company, which just made a big bet on its Livestand magazine and IntoNow TV applications for Apple’s iPad tablet.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Bing, which powers Yahoo on the back end, edged up to 14.8 percent share, from 14.7 percent through September. At this pace, Bing should pass Yahoo in early 2012. Either way, Bing currently drives 30 percent of search engine results, or less than half as much as Google enjoys.

Google has made a couple of improvements to its search engine in the last 30 days.

In October, the company began redirecting most users signed into their Google accounts to the HTTPS version of Google.com, which encrypts search queries and results.

With search becoming more personalized-that is, tailored to specific users’ preferences based on their previous searches-Google said it has become more important to shore up search results directed to users.

Google earlier this month tweaked its algorithm to bring more freshness to 35 percent of search results, including for hot topics and recurring events.

The move is aimed at helping Google better compete with some of the fresher content pouring throughout Facebook and Twitter.