Google Up, Yahoo Up, Microsoft Up

Microsoft has surrendered the top dog position in the ranking of the most powerful brands of 2007 to Google, but in the background, Microsoft is continuing to lose the search battle. March 2007 has marked an invigoration of the search market, and the Redmond Company has inevitably managed to breathe in some of the fresh vitality. However, Microsoft was not alone in gaining some additional ground on the search market. In fact, all the major players have experienced an increase in their search shares.

Microsoft continues to firmly hold a modest third position trailing Google and Yahoo. In March 2007, according to data made available by Nielsen//NetRatings, the combined results of both Microsoft's search engines MSN and Live Search accounted for 717,056,000 searches which is equivalent to 10.1% of the market. With a Year over Year growth of 11.4%, Microsoft has passed over the 10% search share milestone, from 9.6%, 618,315,000 searches in February.

But while Microsoft is still far from one billion searches, Yahoo owns no less than 21.8% of the market in March, jumping from 20.7% in February. In excess of 1,550,574,000 queries were entered in Yahoo taking the company's Year over Year growth at 16.6%.

Google search still reigns supreme with a market share of 53.7% in March. The percentage is associated with 3,816,746,000 searches conducted through the Mountain View Company's engine and a Year over Year growth of 31.6%.

Despite being in the top position in March, the past month marked a share erosion for Google that is down from 55.8% of the market in February. Still, the Mountain View search giant has amassed by far the largest volume of queries, and a 0.5% growth from Microsoft is not going to change that.