Microsoft Search Stagnating in No Man's Land

There appears to be but little hope in the future of Microsoft's search share. The combined results of MSN and Live Search amount to little compared to Google and Yahoo, the Redmond Company's main rivals on the search market. Still, it is not Yahoo, but Google that Microsoft is gunning after, but with no success. Microsoft's search share is going nowhere. The stagnation was confirmed by the latest collection of statistics for May 2007 made public by Internet metrics company comScore.

According to the data, Microsoft only managed to attract 10.3% of the 7.6 billion searches conducted online in the past month. The percentage is identical to that of April. In this context, the fact that Microsoft's search share has not eroded further is the half-full side of the story. However, Microsoft is struggling to get both MSN and Live Search off the ground, and out from the third place. No progress still translates into a failure for Microsoft, even if it can be interpreted otherwise.

"In May 2007, Google Sites captured 50.7 percent of the U.S. search market, gaining one full share point from the previous month. Yahoo! Sites maintained its second place ranking with 26.4 percent of U.S. searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (10.3 percent), Ask Network (5.0 percent) and Time Warner Network (4.6 percent). Americans conducted 7.6 billion searches online in May, up 4 versus April and up 11 percent versus May 2006," comScore stated.

The percentages of the major players on the search market translate in individual queries. The Mountain View company performed 3.9 billion search queries in May, taking the lion's share of the market. Yahoo is the now traditional runner up with 2.0 billion searches and Microsoft is the first search provider under the 1 billion milestone with just 782 million. Ask Network with 384 million searches and Time Warner Network with 348 million are trailing Microsoft and getting closer with each month.