New York — Software monopolist Microsoft has hit a milestone in its slow but steady search ascent, as online competitive market researcher, Experian Hitwise, announced that for the first time Bing powered Internet searches captured slightly more than 30% share of the U.S. Web search market in March, stealing a bit of ground from Google, according to Hitwise.
Yahoo! Search and Bing once again surpassed Google in highest success rates in March. Experian Hitwise stated that successful searches are considered those that result in a visit to a website. Yahoo! Search had an 81.14% success rate and Bing’s success rate was 80.32%. Google was far behind with a success rate of 65.91% in March.
Furthermore, peeping at the U.S. search engine market in March, Bing claimed 30.01% of the search market, rose by 5% since February, while Google–still far and away the leader–dropped to 64.42%, down from 66.69% in February, according to the research firm Hitwise.
Microsoft crossing the 30% threshold comes on the heels of a healthy February of 28.48% of the search market. That includes searches run on Bing’s own site as well as those on Yahoo sites powered by Bing, achieved 15.69% of the searches and Bing.com received 14.32%.
Interestingly, the figures mimic a trend reported last month by rival market-researcher comScore. Bing and Yahoo also outsmarted Google in successful searches, as defined by Hitwise.
The more disturbing statistic for Google, according to Experian Hitwise more Bing searchers clicked a result that took them to a web page, and measuring the number of searches that led to an actual visit to a Web site, the research firm calculated an 81% success rate for both Yahoo and Bing individually, while only 65.9% rate for Google–numbers that have held steady over the past several months.
The success rate can help determine whether a search engine is providing relevant responses. Is Bing delivering a more relevant search? Or perhaps people often use Google as we do, to find the spelling of a word or name, get a quick definition, or check a location, none of which always requires clicking on a link. However, Google has in the past questioned Hitwise’s statistics in this area.
Moreover, the dramatic traffic shoot-up for Bing, which apparently cost Google a bit, come after Google accused Bing of copying its search results in February. Data from comScore also shows that Google’s market share is declining. Some analysts express that if the trend continues, Bing could give Google a real run for its money by next year.
As Bing gathers momentum for a real showdown, holds ground as a member of Microsoft Corporation Online Services Division that also includes Microsoft adCenter, MSN, and Atlas online tools for advertisers and publishers. Yahoo! Search is a member of Yahoo! Inc. which provides free search offerings through Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Local.
Besides, online search behemoth Google Inc. primarily breeds its revenue through online advertising. Google acquired Aardvark, On2 Technologies, AdMob, Slide and Windvine Technologies in 2010.
Although it would also seem that there is still much room to grow in the search market too. Hence, it is too early to write off Google, which is adding features to its search, from +1 to social media search, on a regular basis.
However, the figures quoted by Experian Hitwise are based on 10 million U.S. Internet users.