14 DAY TRIAL // Stagnation is never a god sign, and Google seems to have already peeked, at least as far as the US search market is concerned. According to statistics released by Internet metrics company comScore, Google’s share of the domestic search market increased slightly, just 0.1% between January and February 2010. However, the percentage still accounts for less market share than the Mountain View giant had at the start of 2009 in the US. Bing on the other hand, is up almost 1% in February 2010, compared with the numbers at the start of 2009, and it seems that the only way is up for the Redmond company’s search/decision engine.
According to the Silicon Alley Insider, which cites comScore data from a JP Morgan analyst's report, Google owned 65.5% of the US search market in February 2010, having grown from 65.4% the previous month. This in the context in which the volume of searchers from US-based users increased 10.4% year over year, taking into account the data from February 2009 and February 2010.
What is interesting to note is the dynamic between the no. 2 and no. 3 players on the search market. Having been given the green light by antitrust authorities in the US and Europe, the Microsoft and Yahoo search alliance is beginning to take shape. However, until Bing will start serving all queries on Yahoo web properties, Microsoft’s search engine is still growing, while Yahoo’s is losing market share.
Yahoo was down to 16.8% in February from 17.0% in January, comScore indicates. Bing is fairing the best out of the three top search engines, with its market share getting a small boost to 11.5% in February from 11.3% in January. Critical for Microsoft is to maintain itself on a growth trajectory, both now, and especially after it will swallow Yahoo searches. It will be interesting to see whether the Microsoft and Yahoo couple will have enough mass to draw away users from Google and convince them to search with Bing instead.