Google Continues Gobbling Ad Dollars

New numbers from Efficient Frontier show no end in sight to Google's death grip on search advertising spending, but Yahoo has begun to creep up.

Despite reports out of Nielsen last week that Google’s search share by total searches had dropped in the month of December, new numbers from Efficient Frontier show the search company still going strong using advertising spending as a metric. According to EF, Google now soaks up 76 percent share of the search engine ad spending, which is right on par with what it held for the third quarter (though reflecting a slight 2 percent year-on-year decline).

While Google shows little sign of losing its lead, Yahoo has managed to make progress against the other search engines competing to chase Google. The company elbowed out another 1.9 percent market share in the third quarter, then 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter, to boost its total share to 20 percent. That brings the company’s year-on-year gains to 3 percent.

Microsoft LiveSearch holds the number three spot on EF’s charts, taking in 4.2 percent of total search advertising spending.