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Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier

By | February 15, 2011, 7:17am PST

Summary: According to the January data from comScore, Microsoft and Yahoo have finally managed to hit a new high: A combined share of 29.2 percent of explicit core search share in the U.S.

Last month, I noted that in spite of a series of steady search-share gains for Bing, the “Microhoo” combined share was stuck at around 28 percent in the U.S. (In other words, Microsoft’s gains were being offset by Yahoo’s losses.)

But according to the January data from comScore, the pair have finally managed to hit a new high: Acombined share of 29.2 percent of explicit core search share in the U.S. (Explicit core search share removes certain categories of searches that comScore doesn’t deem to be actual “user-engaged” searches.)

January’s data from comScore:

Google: 65.6 percent (compared to 66.6 in December)
Yahoo: 16.1 percent (was 16.0 in December)
Microsoft: 13.1 percent (was 12.0 in December)
Microhoo: 29.2 percent (compared to 28.0 in December)

Bing was up considerably in January — and that was even before the whole copy-cat tempest-in-teapot. Think what February might be like with all those folks Binging “hiybbprqag”….

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Barrier, U.S., ComScore Networks Inc., Mary Jo Foley

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: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
tomlin21-24319035676893835085146735905770 11th Oct
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
Lilputing 15th Feb 2011
But is the increase due to people typing 'hiybbprqag' into bing to test it? wink
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
RonanSail 15th Feb 2011
good for Bing. Nice to see competition for google.
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
Cylon Centurion 15th Feb 2011
@RonanSail

But how long until Google cries like a little girl, and shows us how sneaky they can be again?
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
Rick_K 15th Feb 2011
@RonanSail
To be honest, if I ever bought a device that had Bing on it, I would delete Bing as one of the first things i would do. Why? Because It?s No Good (BING) wink
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
animageofmine1 15th Feb 2011
@Rick_K I pity you, because people like you don't know what you are talking about...
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Bing is not all that bad.
Bruizer 15th Feb 2011
@Rick_K

I have been liking Blekko of late and use both Bing and Google.
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
nickdangerthirdi@... 15th Feb 2011
@animageofmine1 no some of us do know what we are talking about, Bings page sucks, the results are no better than they were on live search. Its not like everyone who posts is simply anti microsoft, and never even tried it, I tried it, and I didnt like it at all, google is like a security blanket, it may not smell real good, but it sure make me feel better happy
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
frankwick 16th Feb 2011
@Rick_K , that is funny becaus eone of the first things I do now is set the default to Bing. It's not that I don't like Google (although I'm getting closer to that more and more), I really prefer Bing. 90% of my search activity is now Bing.
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
nickdangerthirdi@... 15th Feb 2011
@RonanSail Competition? where? 65% to less than 30%? thats like me running a 20sec 100 meter dash and saying I can compete in the olympics with people running a 10 sec 100 meter dash.....
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Pretty silly, aren't you?
adornoe@... Updated - 15th Feb 2011
The old saying is applicable: "Rome wasn't built in a day".

When something is fairly new or renewed or improved, and then starts with renewed vigor, then, it can't be in the same ball game as that which was the champion for a long while. Bing, while it's mostly a rehash of Microsoft's original search engine, but with major improvements, could be called the "upstart" in the race.

Google can't be happy at all seeing the share from Microsoft/Yahoo creeping up. 30% is not insignificant, and while it's still way behind Google, Google's business partners, aka, the advertisers and stock owners, had better start noticing. But, I'm pretty sure that Google has noticed and they won't be as dismissive as the posters here and in other boards.

Ignoring Microhoo at this stage could end up being very detrimental to Google, if not soon, perhaps later.
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Umm...
GoodThings2Life 15th Feb 2011
@nickdangerthirdi... Why do I know you're the same type of person who thinks that Google and Firefox holding 35% of the browser market is "competition" to Microsoft? Why, then, is it a different analysis when it's the reverse?

30% is a significant amount, I don't care who you are or what you're selling. You start taking 30% of my business, and the gloves are going on, because it's time for a fight.
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Bing offers superior search results
iPad-awan 15th Feb 2011
because Bing is a decision engine and Google is a spam engine. It's about time people notice.

Unless Applec comes out with a search engine, I'll stick with Bing or Wolfram Alpha or duckduckgo or any other search that doesn't steal my data like Google does.
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
rikasa 15th Feb 2011
@iPad-awan

And the more popular Bing becomes the more likely it will become the next spam-magnet. Why do you think there are so many Windows viruses out there? And of course the epitome of virtue Microsoft never resorts to backhand info-grabbing tactics:

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/06/7017.ars
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
frankwick 16th Feb 2011
@iPad-awan , Apple would create the ultimate iAd spam engine. I cringe at the thought of Apple's search engine. They would force every ipad, iphone, mac, safari, user to use it. itunes would be power by it. the app store would be power by it.

Can you image the politics they would implement to get listed? No thanks!
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Bing Is Awesome
sanderson_20@... 16th Feb 2011
Bing FTW! Switched to Bing a year ago and never looked back. The simple truth is I find Bing way more pleasant and efficient to use. The rersults are always relevant and I rarely go past the first page of results to get what I am looking for. People hate on Bing because it is a MSFT product and there is generally a sing-a-long that praises Google to theheavens, but the simple truth is that Google is no longer better than Bing. Like it or not those days are over. Google can also **** and moan about Bing stealing their results but well thinking people delving into the details instead of reading headlines and drinking the Google cool aid understand that this is a much more nuanced thing than Google wants the public to beleive. Like it or not Bing is here to stay and if Google wants to remain at number 1, they need to start innovating in search or see accelerated market share loses to Bing.
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
WilErz 18th Feb 2011
Google are in trouble. Their only real success has been in web search, which is the cash cow that funds everything else. All of Google's competitive projects, from Chrome to Android, are designed to protect Google's dominant search position (from potential rivals like Microsoft and Apple), and are unlikely to ever be substantial profit centres. If Microsoft (or Apple) nevertheless achieve critical mass in search, and take away a substantial share of the advertising profit, Google could simply implode.
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
jackson1984-24316069205748857739440257893812 9th Oct
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RE: Microhoo breaks its 28 percent U.S. search share barrier
tomlin21-24319035676893835085146735905770 11th Oct
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