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ComScore: Combined Microsoft and Yahoo U.S. search share stuck at 28 percent

Summary: The December 2010 comScore search data is out. While Microsoft is continuing to make modest gains, Microhoo is not.

Mary Jo Foley

By for All About Microsoft |

The December 2010 comScore search data is out. While Microsoft is continuing to make modest gains, Microhoo is not.

Google's U.S. explicit core search share was up slightly over November. Yahoo's was down, and Microsoft's also was up slightly.

(Explicit core search share removes certain categories of searches that comScore doesn’t deem to be actual “user-engaged” searches.)

Here's what the last three months looked like, according to comScore:

Google (percent U.S. explicit core search market) October  66.3 November 66.2 December 66.6

Yahoo October  16.5 November 16.4 December 16.0

Microsoft October  11.5 November 11.8 December 12.0

Microhoo (Microsoft +Yahoo) October  28.0 November 28.2 December 28.0

Three months doesn't an absolute trend make, but Microsoft is continuing to grow its U.S. search share constinually, according to the comScore data. On the other hand, as some pundits predicted would happen, Yahoo's share is continuing to shrink constantly. The net: The overall share of Microhoo is hovering around 28 percent.

Yahoo officials said this week the global transition of certain Yahoo Search back-end functions to Microsoft’s search platform is continuing, and the company just completed that transition for organic search in Australia, Brazil and Mexico.

Google's gotten some bad press around the quality (or lack thereof) of its search results as of late. But will average users ever see that information or care?  I'm curious whether Microsoft can grow Bing beyond 28 percent share here in the U.S. -- minus any kind of major gaffe by Google. Do you see that happening? If so, how?

Topics: Browser, Microsoft, Social Enterprise

About

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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18 comments
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  • RE: ComScore: Combined Microsoft and Yahoo U.S. search share stuck at 28 percent

    Bing should launch the Bing HTML5 Preview they showed off at WWDC and IE9 Beta launch event. It looked very promising.
    jarrichvdv
    Reply Vote

    • RE: ComScore: Combined Microsoft and Yahoo U.S. search share stuck at 28 percent

      @jarrichvdv oh yea, I forgot about that. It really did look nice
      artstate
      Reply Vote

  • But it looks like Google's not growing like it used to

    it looks to be stuck around 66%. Wasn't it higher in the past?
    AllKnowingAllSeeing
    Reply Vote

  • What is the revenue deal with Yahoo?

    Does Microsoft keep part of the revenue from Yahoo search? Does all of Yahoo generated Yahoo stay at Yahoo?
    HollywoodDog
    Reply Vote

    • RE: ComScore: Combined Microsoft and Yahoo U.S. search share stuck at 28 percent

      @HollywoodDog If I remember correctly, Yahoo gets 88% of the revenue generated from their sites.

      Despite recent complaints about Google results, I doubt Bing can make up much ground here. In general, the results are "good enough" regardless of your camp. The one x-factor being the Bing/Facebook collaboration, which hasn't yielded anything useful for me yet.

      If the rivalry between Google and Apple grows enough for Apple to use Bing as its default search then things could get very interesting.
      Rich Miles
      Reply Vote

  • RE: ComScore: Combined Microsoft and Yahoo U.S. search share stuck at 28 percent

    Stuck and going down!
    james347
    Reply Vote

    • Just like your posts!

      @james347

      LOL!
      John Zern
      Reply Vote

  • M$ is on the brink

    Google has eaten M$ lunch long ago and now is closing in for the kill with Chrome!
    Linux Geek
    Reply Vote

  • No such luck

    Google is a pillar of American life now. It's a verb the same way Xerox became a verb.<br><br>Who knows what Bing is? If anything, I see Google taking even more marketshare as they are only more likely to improve their algorithm.<br><br>http://www.windows8update.com
    Ammalgam
    Reply Vote

  • Ballmer memory lane

    What did he have to say about Google?

    "Ballmer's threat ... was recounted in a sworn declaration by a former Microsoft engineer, Mark Lucovsky, who said he met with Microsoft's chief executive 10 months ago to discuss his decision to leave the company after six years.

    After learning Lucovsky was leaving to take a job at Google, Ballmer picked up his chair and hurled it across his office, according to the declaration.

    Ballmer then pejoratively berated Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Lucovsky recalled.

    "I'm going to f---ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again," the declaration quotes Ballmer. "I'm going to f---ing kill Google." "
    HollywoodDog
    Reply Vote

    • RE: ComScore: Combined Microsoft and Yahoo U.S. search share stuck at 28 percent

      @HollywoodDog <br>Story isn't true. I can't believe people still post this because some disgruntled employee who should never have been working at Microsoft in the first place got fired and made up some lies.
      Loverock Davidson
      Reply Vote

      • Absolutely...

        @Loverock Davidson ... no CEO at Microsoft ever uses the F word, right? (Some people told me it's the most common word they do use up there)
        HollywoodDog
        Reply Vote

      • By the way

        @Loverock Davidson ... before you go pointing the dirty end of the perjury stick at Mr. Lucovsky, you'd better be sure you can prove it.
        HollywoodDog
        Reply Vote

      • RE: ComScore: Combined Microsoft and Yahoo U.S. search share stuck at 28 percent

        @HollywoodDog
        I won't take a disgruntled employee's word for it, that is for sure.
        Loverock Davidson
        Reply Vote

      • Let's be realistic

        Microsoft and its employees have a large ego, it's not yesterday's news. I'm sure there are words like that being said all of the time around there, no doubt about it.
        Chris_Clay
        Reply Vote

  • We'll probably see Bing Cashback return

    I suspect that Bing Cashback will make a comeback now that Bing isn't gaining any more market share. It's been stagnant around 3.2-3.3% for a year according to NetMarketShare. Microsoft likes to bribe and pay people to use their software, since no other ways seem to work.
    Chris_Clay
    Reply Vote

  • RE: ComScore: Combined Microsoft and Yahoo U.S. search share stuck at 28 percent

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