Google Grows Search Engine Lead

Market analysis firm Hitwise finds Google continued to grow its share of the search engine market in March, accounting for over 64 percent of all U.S. Web searches.

Market research firm Hitwise reports that Google continues to increase its market share amongst Internet search engines during March 2007, accounting for 64.13 percent of all U.S. searches. Yahoo, MSN Search, and Ask.com all saw their share of the U.S. search market drop slightly.

According to Hitwise, Yahoo garnered 21.26 percent of U.S. searches during March; MSN Search (including Live.com) managed to get 9.15 percent of the market, and Ask.com accounted for 3.48 percent of all U.S. search queries for the month. The figures represent both a month-to-month decline for all three search engines, as well as a year-on-year decline, while Google’s month-to-month and year-to-year numbers represent growth of 0.23 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively, as a proportion of all searches; year-to-year, Google’s portion of the U.S. search market grew by more than 10 percent.

“Google’s growth shows no signs of slowing” said Bill Tancer, General Manager of global research at Hitwise, in a statement. “Despite capturing the majority of searches in the U.S., and in light of competitor’s improvements, Google’s market share of executed searches continues to grow.”