Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Bing-powered searches continue to increase

By | September 9, 2011, 9:48am PDT

Summary: Although Google easily remains the top dog of search engines, Bing is creeping up ever-so-slightly.

Google slipped slightly in the search engine market share in August, according to the latest figures from research firm Experian Hitwise.

Although it could be seen as a trivial amount at just a one percent decrease to 65.09 percent of U.S. searches overall, Bing-powered searches climbed by three percent to 28.99 percent overall.

Also noteworthy was Yahoo, which might be suffering amidst other problems as of late. Nevertheless, Yahoo’s searches grew by another five percent after climbing by another four percent last month.

Other highlights from the survey:

  • The remaining 64 search engines included in the report accounted for 5.92 percent of U.S. searches
  • One-word searches comprised the majority of searches, amounting to 26.26% of all queries
  • Longer search queries — those averaging five to eight words or more — increased by three percent between July 2011 and August 2011

Last month, Hitwise reported that Google accounted for 66.05 percent of all U.S. searches in July. When accounting for Bing-powered searches alone, that was double the amount of the second place recipient.

However, Bing-powered searches, which increased by one percent in July, are distinguished from Bing.com searches, which when added together forms a much more significant piece of the pie, further pushing Yahoo down in the search market.

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Topics

Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

Disclosure

Rachel King

Rachel King has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted in this blog.

Biography

Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco. Before serving as a contributing editor at ZDNet in New York City for two years, she previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish America Magazine and the New York Daily News, among others. Rachel has a B.A. in Mass Communications and History from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, where she served as art director for the student magazine, Plated.

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You don't have to make things up
LiquidLearner 11th Sep
@itguy10

IE prompts you to choose your search settings at first launch, including with a brand new Windows 7 install. Google has a blue bar at the top of the page when you go to Google that offers to set itself as your search provider and home page. But hey, that's completely okay. It's only if MS does something that it's a problem.
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RE: Bing-powered searches continue to increase
LoverockDavidson_-24231404894599612871915491754222 9th Sep
To be expected, Bing has the better search results. That is why I set it as the default search engine on every PC I touch.
@LoverockDavidson_

Too bad Bing doesn't and I feel sorry for ANYONE'S PC that you touch.
Woo-hoo! All that product placement advertising (e.g. "Let me Bing it") on the Vampire Diaries has paid off!
i found my self search agnostic with respect to bing and google, but am very happy to see competition and would like bing to do a little better outside of the U.S
google is like the IE of search engines. little by little people are getting tired of their games, realize it isn't better and moving on. it will not happen overnight due to inertia, but it is happening little by little. with google distracted with a bunch of silly side projects to try to spread like cancer on the internet, they forgot about search.
@neonspark

I always get what I'm looking for when I Google something. That's why I continue to use it. That and superior Maps, Google Earth, and there's no reason to look anywhere else.

Bing seems so second rate, like the Suny TV's, Panasoonic Stereos, and Ralex watches....
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Isn't Yahoo a "Bing Powered" search?
LiquidLearner 9th Sep
As bing.com would be as well. I'm pretty sure "Bing Powered" would be bing.com, yahoo.com and any other toolbars. Unless the entire search market comprises 123% of the searches.

I'm glad Bing is doing well as they've forced Google to innovate, much the way Firefox and Chrome forced Microsoft to do something with IE, but you may want to clarify that. As a blogger you should at least understand the numbers you post.
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Concurrent with the rise of people buying Windows 7 machines and leaving the default search set to Bing? Hmm. And the one-word search is a dead giveaway that many of these searches are automated.
@terry flores

Exactly. When you install Win 7, IE is automatically set to Bing. Installing Google as a search provider is a painful process where you have to visit the MS gadget website, accept all these warnings, and jump through many hoops. Wonder how many just don't do it?

When you install Chrome it asks you to pick a search engine. That's the way to do it; let the user decide.
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Painful?
Michael Alan Goff 10th Sep
@itguy10

How is it painful to click the little button that lets you select the engine, choose "manage", and then install Google?
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You don't have to make things up
LiquidLearner 11th Sep
@itguy10

IE prompts you to choose your search settings at first launch, including with a brand new Windows 7 install. Google has a blue bar at the top of the page when you go to Google that offers to set itself as your search provider and home page. But hey, that's completely okay. It's only if MS does something that it's a problem.
I think that in Bing, when you put two or more words, it gives results by one of these words and not the combination of both... If they make this better, I will use Bing more (I like Bing's homepage a lot, and the way it presents some types of searchs, like geographical places, is also better)

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