Google Nears 70 Pct Share of Search Market

While Yahoo and Microsoft have been maneuvering over searching, Google extended its share of the U.S. search market to nearly 70 percent in June.

A new report from market research firm Hitwise summarizes the proportion of U.S. Internet searches handled by major search engines during June 2008, and finds Google handled nearly 70 percent of all online searches during the month. Compared to May 2008, the numbers haven’t shifted very much—Google picked up less than one percent, Yaahoo declined less than half a percent, MSN declined nearly half a percent. But from a year-to-year perspective, the numbers are more telling: Google increased its dominance of the search market by 5.25 percent during the last year, while Yahoo and MSN saw declines of 1.69 percent and 4.39 percent, respectively.

Interestingly, Ask.com—which has apparently set aside its search game and is making itself over as a women’s lifestyle portal saw a 0.75 percent year-on-year gain, although it list six one hundreds of a percentage point between May and June of this year.

Taking the year-on-year figures proportionately, its easy to see why Microsoft was so interested in buying out Yahoo—and then got interested in taking over its search business. Between June 2007 and June 2007, Microsoft saw a nearly 44 percent decline in the number of searches it saw executed on Live.com and MSN.com as a proportion of overall search traffic—this despite sustained efforts to improve its search technology and usability. Yahoo, conversely, saw only an 8 percent proportionate declines in the same period, and still accounts for about one Internet search in five. When it comes to Internet search, Yahoo is the only significant player besides Google.

Amusingly, Ask.com saw a proportionate increase of 22 percent in the amount of search traffic it handled over the last year.

Overseas, Google’s share is even higher: Google accounted for 87 percent of UK searches in June 2008 (a 10 percent increase over the last year) and Google commanded 88 percent of Australian searches in June 2008.