Google Still Dominates Search, but Russia’s Yandex Now Leads Bing

Google Search continues to maintain its huge global lead in the search engine marketplace, but the latest monthly statistics from ComScore show the Russian search engine Yandex.com pulling ahead of Microsoft’s Bing search engine at the end of 2012.

The new global ComScore rankings for December 2012 show Google leading all search companies with 114.7 billion searches, or a 65.2 percent share, compared with the distant second-place finisher, Chinese search engine Baidu.com, which was used in 14.5 billion searches, for an 8.2 percent share, according to an article by GigaOm. Yahoo.com ranks in third place with 4.8 billion searches, for a 2.8 percent share of the search market.

In fourth place on the list, Yandex was used for 4.8 billion searches, for a 2.8 percent share, compared with Bing, which was used in 4.5 billion searches, for a 2.5 percent share, and came in fifth place on the list. All other search engines, combined, were used in 28.7 billion searches for a 16.3 percent share, according to the figures.

The Yandex numbers are particularly interesting because they showed the Russian search engine leading Bing for the second month in a row, according to ComScore’s figures. The first time that happened was in November 2012, when Yandex jumped into fourth place on the search rankings over Bing.com, which is now in fifth place on the list.

The November 2012 global search numbers had Google leading with 114.1 billion searches, Baidu in second with 14.6 billion searches, Yahoo in third with 8.6 billion searches, Yandex in fourth place with 4.6 billion searches and Bing in fifth with 4.5 billion searches.

Yandex is the leading search engine in Russia, employed by more than 60 percent of users, according to the latest figures from the Website LiveInternet.ru.

But the news isn’t all bad for Bing and Microsoft because Microsoft’s search engines still are used by more individual users than Yandex in those same months, according to a story from SearchEngineLand.com.

In December, Google was used by 1.17 billion unique searchers globally, for a 76.6 percent share, while Baidu had 293 million unique searchers, for a 19.2 percent share. Yahoo had 292 million unique searchers, for a 19.2 percent share, while Microsoft had 269 million unique searchers, for a 17.6 percent share. Yandex came in fifth for the number of unique searchers, far behind with 74 million, for a 4.9 percent share, according to SearchEngineland.com.

The numbers since July 2012 were similar, with Microsoft besting Yandex in terms of unique searchers in each month, according to the statistics.

Yet despite the presence of Baidu, Yahoo, Yandex and others, the search market is often portrayed as a competition between the powerhouses on the block—Google and Microsoft.

Last October, Google’s market value topped Microsoft’s for the first time in the history of the two companies, as Google’s market value was tagged at $249 billion compared with Microsoft’s $247 billion. It was the first time Google’s worth on paper topped Microsoft’s since Google splashed onto the technology scene in 1998, marking a financial milestone for the search engine company as it continues to grow.

Both Google and Microsoft still trailed Apple, which at the time was ranked first in market valuation at $618.1 billion. Apple’s valuation topped Microsoft’s back in 2010 as iPhones and iPads began their marches to sales successes.

Google and Microsoft have been bashing heads in the technology markets for more than a decade. In September 2012, Microsoft launched its humorous and catchy “Bing It On Challenge” that asked millions of Web searchers to break their longtime Google search habits and give the software giant’s Bing search engine a new try. With the campaign, Microsoft has been trying to get users to see the progress it has made with Bing and grow Bing’s market share in the search wars.