Google search share rises while competitors stumble

Although Google might be having problems understanding social networking and platforms in general, apparently it can still understand its core business: search.

The Goog accounted for 66.12 percent of all searches in the United States in the month of September, according to research firm Experian Hitwise.

In fact, Google was the only top search engine that did not falter when it came to month-over-month percentage change. Bing and Bing-powered searches dropped three and two percent respectively, while Yahoo slipped by the most at four percent.

Hitwise reported that Google actually usually sees an increase in the month of September based on the last five out of six years, although reasons for that weren't explained, so maybe Google doesn't deserve so much praise if this was expected.

Here are a few other highlights from September searches:

• Yahoo has typically seen a search decline in September vs. August per Experian Hitwise data and has for the last 5 years.
• One-word searches comprised the majority of searches, amounting to 25.32 percent of all queries in September 2011.
• Longer search queries of eight or more words increased by three percent in September 2011.

We'll see how well Google does when it comes to even more important numbers -- earnings -- on Thursday when the Mountain View, Calif.-based tech giant reports third quarter results.

Related:

• Singaporeans spend the most time per visit on Facebook (survey)
• Bing-powered searches continue to increase
• Smartphones are turning Americans into secret spies (survey)
• U.S. mobile users becoming ‘digital omnivores’ (survey)
• Parents catching on to communicating with kids via social media