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Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?

By | January 12, 2012, 6:09am PST

Summary: Beating Yahoo is meaningless to Microsoft. Bing needs to dent Google.

The search news of the day is that Microsoft core searches have overtaken Yahoo for the first time ever, according to comScore.

I’d be more wound up about comScore’s December data if Microsoft didn’t power Yahoo’s results.

Note Microsoft’s alleged big leap in the search standings.

The problem is that Microsoft is really competing with itself when it comes to upending Yahoo.

Explicit searches show a wash for Bing-powered searches. Microsoft was up 2 percent and Yahoo was down 2 percent for no gain. Google’s explicit search queries from November to December were up 3 percent.

In the end, Google had 68.1 percent of the search market in December, up from 67.6 percent in November. Bing share slipped to 26.5 percent share in December, down from 26.7 percent in November.

Bottom line: Beating Yahoo is meaningless to Microsoft. Bing needs to dent Google.

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Topics

Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Bing, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
fo128 13th Jan
@toddybottom

nice one!
View in thread
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Who made a big deal of this?
toddybottom Updated - 12th Jan
"Note Microsoft???s alleged big leap in the search standings."

The only one making a big deal about this is: you, only so you can tell us that this is no big deal. This is the very definition of a strawman. I looked at comscore's press release and nowhere did they even mention that MS passed Yahoo. When I did a news search on "bing yahoo" (no quotes) I get 2 stories: 1 on CNet and one on Newsday that leads to a 404.
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
Rob.sharp@... 12th Jan
@toddybottom

Like all tech wars it's about personal preference. I prefer Bing and use it daily since it suits my needs.
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
fo128 13th Jan
@toddybottom

nice one!
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The context here is more relevant
HollywoodDog 12th Jan
Microsoft is losing money hand over fist on Bing. But they are taking a bit of the premium profits out of Google by providing an alternative.

Bing is an entirely defensive play. It's entirely about making life a little less profitable for Google in hopes it will make it harder for Google to do other things that could eat Microsoft's lunch down the road; like making a very popular OS for phones and other devices.
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So? Google's losing money hand over fist with most of their software
William Farrel Updated - 12th Jan
@HollywoodDog
yet you never berate them. And I wouldn't call Android "popular", it's just what comes with the cheap/free phones.

Most people I know with that hardware have no idea what Android is.
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
xtreem0 12th Jan
@William Farrel Even if people don't know what they are using just by numbers Android is a popular phone. (though by preference I do like Windows Phone better)...
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
Loverock Davidson- 12th Jan
Give it time and Bing will make a dent in Google. Every quarter we hear about Bing's share rising, Google's share flucuates but mostly its been trending downwards. Since Google lacks any direction in any of their products and services its just a matter of time before Bing puts that dent in. Meanwhile Google employees will be sitting around playing with their office toys wondering what happened.
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
oraman 12th Jan
@Loverock Davidson- +1. It's just a matter of time. Microsoft has time and money to play this game. The will eventually eat into GOOGs one and only one revenue stream.
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
Aerowind 12th Jan
According to the data, this has absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft, other than obviously powering Yahoo. By that, I mean Microsoft's Bing didn't grow...rather, Google is murdering off Yahoo. Saying Microsoft overtook Yahoo is silly when all of the share went straight to Google.
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
The Danger is Microsoft 12th Jan
@Aerowind +1. It's just a matter of time. Microsoft will eventually lose this game like they have lost so many others. They will eventually eat into too much cash and end up with yet another halted 'product' like they did with Kin and Zune, amoung others. Must really hurt to try to copy others stuff, sinking boatloads of money, only to have to call it quits.
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
shellcodes_coder 12th Jan
The bottom line is Google is still the best search engine out there. People using Bing are all the ones using IE and have never heard of Google which gives much better search results
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Actually not true, Bing beats google in core relevence of results.
Johnny Vegas 12th Jan
Its not just the ux where bing is out inovating and being copied by google. They are quietly gaining real share and real advertizer attention and it will only grow as they grow xbox, wp, and w8 tablets.
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Not true
itpro_z 12th Jan
@shellcodes_coder, I have done actual comparisons, performing the same search on Google and Bing, and consistently get better results from Bing. Most people seem to think that Google is the internet, and are not aware that there are other choices. When I show them Bing and suggest they give it a try, I find that most agree with me that Bing is a superior search engine.
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
anono 12th Jan
@itpro_z
You lost all credibility when you claimed most people don't know Bing. Not only do they spend more on marketing than Google, but they are also the default search engine on 90+% of computers.

There was a recent article about MS employees going around the internet bashing any bad reviews of their product. Kind of makes you wonder how people can claim a product that has more marketing and is default and loses market share can still be claimed by some to be consistently better. If it was better people wouldn't be leaving it.
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
windozefreak 12th Jan
@shellcodes_coder
Bet you are wrong! I've heard of Google, but I don't use it!
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there's a reason why
johnnydoe1894 12th Jan
The only reason for this is that Microsoft ships their junk set to Bing as the default and at least 50% of my customers do not know how to change search engines, or even understand the difference between them, or even care. So by default Bing gets business. I prefer to give zero business to Microsoft outside of the operating system costs, we need to have competition to keep them in line and Google, Apple, Yahoo, whatever, whoever provide that.
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Is the reverse also true?
itpro_z 12th Jan
@johnnydoe1894, you seem to like competition. Does that also apply to Google, considering that they dominate the search market? Even if you prefer Google, a strong competitor like Bing pushes them to do better.
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exactly
oneleft 12th Jan
@johnnydoe1894
start a new computer with windows on it. open ie. try to change the search to google. it ain't 1, 2, 3 done. it ain't obvious. install chrome. start it up. first thing you see, before the browser window, is the option to set your search engine.

they can't help but gain when the average user has no idea or doesn't care.
when you've got some market share by default, and you're willing to lose billions of dollars, then how can you not dent google?

google didn't advertise for 10 years. there were lots of search options (several by ms alone). google won by people choosing it. bing will gain share only by moneyball tactics and it being the default on new pc's.
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
windozefreak 12th Jan
@oneleft
When I upgraded to IE9, before it completed its installation, it asked which search engine I wanted as the default. Of course, I chose Bing!!
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
bb_apptix 12th Jan
Bing and Yahoo are pretty much one in the same....
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
bobjones2007 12th Jan
When's the last time you heard someone say "Just Bing it"?

:/
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RE: Microsoft search overtakes Yahoo. So what?
windozefreak 12th Jan
@bobjones2007
I tell people this all the time!!
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And Dogpile too
Robert Hahn 12th Jan
Call me when they've passed up Alta Vista.
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Seriously, are today's bloggers this clueless???
wackoae 12th Jan
It is being over a year since Yahoo started using Bing as the search engine.

When you talk about Yahoo search, you are actually talking about Bing search results.

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