14 DAY TRIAL // We reported earlier that Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, was having a really successful launch, becoming the number two search engine in the US and easily going passed Yahoo. It now looks like the spike was very short lived and Bing has gone down to its previous levels, Yahoo having nothing to fear just yet.
Bing hit its peak on June 4, gaining more than 15 percent of the US search market with Yahoo left with just 10 percent. Although most people were skeptical about the rise holding in the long run, while other reports showed a much more moderate increase, few believed that its popularity would be so short lived. In fact, by the next day Bing had fallen back to the number three spot with just 10 percent of the US search market share while Yahoo rose back to 11 percent. On June 6, the Redmond company’s search engine fell to less than 7 percent and it continues to fall even today, by StatCounter's measurements, going down to a mere 4.4 percent.
Bing's rise in fact hasn't affected Yahoo Search very much as the majority of market share gained came from Google, which dropped to 72 percent on the 4th. The search giant has since regained the lost market and currently has almost 83 percent, the highest number in the previous month. Bing had a big spike fueled by people’s curiosity for the new search engine, but as the original hype died down so did the numbers. This trend was to be expected of course but maybe not at this rate.
This isn't an indication that Bing hasn't proven successful as it is too early to tell and, in fact, Microsoft has a much more modest goal in mind for its new search engine. As to how this leaves the Microsoft-Yahoo deal, it is also too early to make predictions, as the software giant will likely be waiting for more conclusive results of the success, or failure, of its new search engine before thinking about the possibility of acquiring Yahoo Search.