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ComScore: Microhoo now with 28.5 percent combined U.S. search share

By | September 17, 2010, 8:33am PDT

The August comScore numbers are out, with that firm claiming that Microsoft and Yahoo now have a collective 28.5 percent of U.S. search share, compared to Google with 65.4 percent.

According to comScore’s calculations, that means Microsoft’s U.S. share is up one-tenth of a percentage point and Yahoo’s up three-tenths (if those two were still operating separately).

Twenty-nine percent sounds a lot better than 11 percent (which is what Microsoft’s Bing captured, U.S.-share-wise in July). And with Microsoft now providing Yahoo with Bing results in North America, the Microhoo team is now basically the Bing team. And Google’s four-tenths of a percentage point loss was the Bing team’s gain, comScore said.

Speaking of Bing, I recently stumbled onto a job posting at Microsoft that mentioned a Microsoft search-related codename I hadn’t heard before: Rankomatic. From that listing:

“We’re developing a system called Rankomatic that can apply a bunch of algorithmic smarts to the problems of placing elements on the search page, ranking contents within those elements, and ultimately how to learn from user behavior in order to improve our system automatically. We’ll be developing a continuously exploring system using the principles of A/B testing and applying them to many different features on the page on a continuous basis. In the process we’ll be touching many different disciplines pertaining to ranking, evaluation, statistics, large-scale data analysis, and user behavior modeling.”

Nothing earth-shattering here, but may be useful somewhere down the line….

And in other search news, there’s a new blog on ZDNet that anyone interested in the black arts of SEO might be interested in following. It’s called “SEO Whistleblower,” and Chapman’s been busy getting new content up there….

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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).

Disclosure

Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors.

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

Got a tip? Send her an email with your rants, rumors, tips and tattles. Confidentiality guaranteed.

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RE: ComScore: Microhoo now with 28.5 percent combined U.S. search share
dsfwrryd2701-24353666362584055827984983065980 Updated - 10th Nov
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Not surprised, see Google is the big Evil these days. You don't beleive me, read for yourselves:
1. http://www.businessinsider.com/google-is-now-officially-evil-2010-9
And Eric Schmidt response confirming its evilness, just read between the lines:
2. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/googles-chief-on-social-mobile-and-conflict/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Google only cares about selling their mums for ads.
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And thats with almost no mobile so far
Johnny Vegas 17th Sep 2010
Once WP7 comes out and Verizon starts switching all their android phones over to Bing, and the iphone Bing app becoming a top download it will go up again. Well done bing! youve got google trying to copy everything you do now
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ROTFLMAO
jasonp@... 17th Sep 2010
If WP7 is anything like Microsoft's last foray into the phone world...the Kin...you'd better get ready to see Bing lose market share instead of gain. Google is the "Windows on the corporate desktop" of internet search. There isn't really a second place. The top two competitors merged and only wound up with half of Googles market share. If Google is copying anything from Microsoft, it's complete dominance of a vertical market.
@jasonp@...
Pathetic fool! Kin is not a smartphone.
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Sir, you should not comment on a subject
Mister Spock 18th Sep 2010
unless you understand the subject at hand.
plain
@jasonp@...

Well I keep going back to this because the anti-MS trolls keep doing the same...

The first Apple phone was the Motorola Rokr.....how successful was THAT?

Given the faillure of the Rokr, why would anyone want to invest in the iPhone?

What's that you say? The Rokr and the iPhone are two completely different things? Exactly.
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Not true at all...
Peter Perry Updated - 20th Sep 2010
@jasonp@... Operating systems are mandated by corporations but for the moat part they don't care what you use for search so, Google's only foothold is that people are just used to using it.

As for Bing, I just think it is a stupid name and the site doesn't have the polish or simplicity that Google has.
These are quotes that really gets me losing my cool:
...?The best thing that would happen is Facebook would open up its network and we?d use that information to improve our ads and our search,? Mr. Schmidt said. ?Failing that, there are other ways in which we can get that information, which is what we?re working on.?
Google?s Android business is flourishing, he said, despite the fact that Google makes no money on it because it gives the mobile operating system away for free.
?I have been surprised at how important Android is for our business,? Mr. Schmidt said. ?It?s fundamentally because Android is seen as representative of the new model of computing, and people are dying to put their best applications on an open platform.?

Say whaa?! I just pity anyone using Android, hearing what Schmidt has to say about it. How can Anroid be so important to Google as a free product if its not a Google's Trojan?
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Relax
Peter Perry 20th Sep 2010
@eInfinity Relax man, Android is a pretty cool OS and if you think it is a Trojan go read the source code...

Here's the thing with Android, yes it is cool in spite of what some jealous people might say... But, the biggest part is that it is filling a need more than anything and as it fills that need it becomes the dominant force.

Could Android Dominance have been prevented? Yep, of course it could... What would it have taken? Apple to start selling iOS to other manufacturers and to drop their feud with flash... Crud, one could argue it isn't even too late for Apple to do that but it might be for MS to do that.
Great to see competition at work here. Now that they have over 10% the others can start catering to Bing. The numbers are only going to rise from here. I switch all my default search engines over to bing, and whenever I use someone else's computer I switch theirs over as well.
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You don't even need to do that
HollywoodDog 17th Sep 2010
@Loverock Davidson ... just Windows Update to IE8, and you'll get switched for free.
@HollywoodDog
Good point, I'll have to remember that.
@Loverock Davidson

"...and whenever I use someone else's computer I switch theirs over as well."

Wow. That's mighty neighborly of you.

Remind me never to let you use my computer.
@pdq
Consider it me doing you a favor.
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it ain't competition
sportmac Updated - 17th Sep 2010
@Loverock Davidson
microsoft has lost the search war - for almost a decade now. msn search, live search, windows live search, etc. - they lost.
pumping billions of dollars (that's money in the lost column) into something to keep it afloat (and ballmer says ms will lost up to 10 billion if necessary to establish itself in search) is not competition.
poor yahoo had to run a business based on a, uh, business. you know, that nasty little thing called profit and loss. microsoft doesn't. they can (and do) lose obscene amounts of money on these projects and will continue to do so until the cash cows come home.

ballmer: we may not be the first or the best but we just keep coming and coming and coming...

translation: we'll pump money into it until you die.

btw, you know what 10 billion will get you? another cern large hadron collider. if you don't know what that is then try this, another international space station.

obscene? yes. fair competition? no. free market at work? no.
@sportmac
So Bing is gaining market share and you're calling that losing?
@daytodie you kinda missed the point there didn't ya pumpkin. i can type it slower if it helps.
bing has lost over a billion dollars since it's introduction (actually since it's renaming). does that help? i mean that would be "losing" dont' ya think?
@sportmac

For years Apple people told me that Apple's miniscule market share didn't mean anything as long as the company was profitable, now I am being told that because MS doesn't have a majority market share in search, it is losing....whatever happened to 'market share doesn't matter so long as the company is profitable?'
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Again with the Market Share
HollywoodDog 20th Sep 2010
@sportmac ... business is about making money, not making Market Share.
Bing still not as good for tech stuff.....when it is..then maybe they can compete properly.....
@htotten
Are you kidding? Maybe you should use it instead of looking at pictures.
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Surprised . . . and, yet, not
mwidunn 17th Sep 2010
To my mind, Google is still the best search engine out there. Bing-hoo . . . Yahbing: not even close. Nevertheless, in light of the Google Instant fiasco (which included Google's insensitive and arrogant imposition of suggested queries on Me the User without being able to turn them off) I have switched over to Bing for now. Google should change it's motto to: "Don't be stupid."
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The Microsoft surge in search
HollywoodDog 17th Sep 2010
is no doubt the direct result of hiring the Black Eyed Peas to play a Microsoft event, and repeatedly use the word "Bing" as a verb from the stage.

...

Black Eyed Peas try to turn "Bing Bing" into a "bling bling"
Posted by Sharon Pian Chan

The Black Eyed Peas tried to make "Bing Bing" a catchphrase like "bling bling" at a private concert held for Microsoft employees Friday in Atlanta at the Microsoft Global Experience conference.

Bing is the search engine Microsoft launched last year to compete with dominant player Google. To try to replace the generic use of "Google" as a verb, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has been inserting the verb "Bing" into many of his speeches.

The pop band Black Eyed Peas are now trying, too, at least at this corporate event, which looks like more fun than the MySpace party in the movie "Funny People" with James Taylor and Adam Sandler.

At the Microsoft conference, Will.i.am calls out the audience "as my Bing Bingers." (It's also possible he said "my big Bingers.")

"This is the future of search, the Bing Bings," he says to Fergie. "So, when I say 'Bing Bing,' you know what 'Bing Bing' means? If I have a ball or a projectile, I hit it and it continues to ricochet everywhere, that?s bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing? Eventually it takes ?em all out. That?s what 'Bing Bing' means." And then they start singing "I Gotta Feeling."
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Wow, that was a good move by MS then!
NonZealot 17th Sep 2010
@HollywoodDog
Funny since MS is usually so bad at marketing. Thanks for providing an example where MS marketing actually succeeded!
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My point exactly
HollywoodDog 17th Sep 2010
@HollywoodDog ... I know when I read the above, I immediately changed my default search provider.

Perhaps they're evaluating what it would cost to get Lady Gaga to slip 'Bing' in to one of her songs. I mean, how much could it cost? 20 million? 30?

No word yet on the going rate for Insane Clown Posse.
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Then that would have been cool, right?
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Bing Yahoo! = less
nomorebs 17th Sep 2010
Geez, this is pathetic really. Bing was in 11% and yahoo in 19% and now combined they are worth less??

Just look at the Yahoo! results webpage: "Powered by Bing?" in the smallest letters I have seen in Yahoo! in years.


Ha ha, please Ballmer : retire now!!
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The Pied Piper of software........
Ole Man 18th Sep 2010
?learn from USER BEHAVIOR?
?pertaining to ranking, evaluation, statistics, large-scale data analysis, and USER BEHAVIOR modeling?

Good old Microsoft..... carefully tracking and logging any user who gets near a computer with their software on it. Or anyone else's software on it whenever possible.

?Google does it too? is a perfect excuse. No?!!!

Isn't it amazing how John Q Public is so anxious to place his neck in a virtual noose, no matter who is holding the other end?
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I think you've almost got it...
GoPower 19th Sep 2010
Micro Who?
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