Bing Passes Yahoo but Lags Behind Google: Nielsen

Did Bing just overrun Yahoo to become the second-ranked search engine in the United States? New data from analytics firm Nielsen certainly suggests that's the case, estimating Bing's August market share at 13.9 percent and Yahoo's at 13.1 percent. Google maintains pole position in the race, with 65 percent."In terms of a year-over-year comparison, Google has seen little change in its share of search while Yahoo has seen a small but steady decline," reads Nielsen's Sept. 14 blog posting on the matter. "MSN/Windows Live/Bing's share has grown from 10.7 percent in August 2009 to 13.9 percent (a delta increase of 3.2 percent or a relative increase of 30 percent)."According to Nielsen's posting, that data's based only on user-generated search queries; things like contextual searches, hovers and in-text searches are left out of the final reckoning.Contrast Nielsen's data with last month's findings from analytics firm Experian Hitwise, which pegged Bing's U.S. market share at 9.86 percent, behind Yahoo at 14.43 percent and Google at 71.43 percent. Other analysts, notably Youssef Squali over at Jefferies & Co., have suggested that Bing's market-share rise is beginning to level off.Numbers notwithstanding, Yahoo's officially out of the U.S. search-engine game, with Bing powering its back-end search under the terms of a 10-year agreement with Microsoft. Absorbing Yahoo's market share gives Bing a combined 27-30 percent against Google's 65-71 percent (depending on which firm's data you use). Sure, Yahoo has been making a multimillion-dollar effort to show its continued viability as a Web property--including a massive ad campaign and some new features for its traditional offerings--but Microsoft has also been taking steps (such as Bing's Entertainment tab, and the Office Web Apps available via Live) to remake itself into more of a Web destination.I wouldn't say that Yahoo's finished as a viable online entity--it's certainly not an AOL-style zombie quite yet--but its late-2009 campaign to reclaim the public's mind-share seems to have had little impact. In any case, Nielsen's new numbers reiterate that U.S. search is now firmly a two-player game--although Bing has a long way to go if it wants to actually threaten Google's current dominance.



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