Google’s US Search Share Down 5%

Sites include Bing.com , Google.com . Published on July 1st, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

Google’s share of search is large enough to keep it ahead of its competitors for some time but its overall dominance is dwindling—even if only by the slightest of margins.

According to Experian Hitwise, Google saw a 5% dip in its share of the US search market over the period May 2011 to May 2012. For the four weeks ending June 2, 2012, Google’s share was recorded at 65.02% of the market; the same time last year in 2011, Google’s share was 68.11%.

Bing on the other hand saw an increase in its share of the US search market and recorded a ownership of 28.12% of US searches. The increase though marginal, was precisely the decrease of Google—5%. Bing has you know is now powering a huge chunk of Yahoo search and many are predicting that as the Microsoft-developed search engine gets better at the game of search, it will start to challenge Google in a more meaningful way.

Already Bing is being noted for its better search efficiency—the conversion of searches into the desired action of those being found. Google used to be good at this due to its high relevance but in recent years it has had to revamp its algorithm constantly to stay ahead of spammers who would seek to weaken the relevancy of its searches.

Meanwhile there are still other ‘hangers on’ in the search game like AOL who accounts for 6.86% of US searches. That figure may not be significant on its own, but add it to either Google’s total share or even Bing’s and you get a completely different picture.