Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL search up; Google down

Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL each carved out a little more U.S. search market share in January, but Google still had the biggest piece of the pie, according to a report Wednesday by ComScore.

Yahoo Web sites accounted for 21 percent of the market (up half a percent) compared to the month before, while Microsoft grabbed an 8.5 percent slice (up 0.2 percent), and AOL nabbed 3.9 percent of the market (a 0.1 percent increase).

Google, while still holding the largest slice of the market by far, accounted for 63 percent of the search industry in January, down half a percent.

One interesting observation from Silicon Alley Insider is Yahoo's consecutive five-month run in posting modest monthly gains in U.S. search market share.

In August, for example, Yahoo's market share stood at 19.7 percent, according to SIA. But in the past five months, it has steadily grown, garnering more than a 1 point increase during that time.

[Chapmaniac]

Okay - I'll go on record for saying I actually like Live.com for searches - especially images. There are times when I need a square or wide image or one that matches my desktop dimensions. Live.com gives me those narrow-down options. I resort to Google for researching Groups (which Google owns going back a few years) and for viewing images through the amazing Cooliris browser plugin.

[DubVmarty]

Cooliris works with Live image search as well.

[NPGMBR]

I use Live Search too but I sure wish i could fingure out how to find the pics they use on the site. Most are beautiful!

[eltoro2827]

live com rules

[jackdaniels08]

Microsoft Live is so pathetically horrible there are no words in the English language to describe my malignant disgust for it.

[eltoro2827]

hahaha, what a hater.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Jackdaniels08 wrote:

"Microsoft Live is so pathetically horrible there are no words in the English language to describe my malignant disgust for it. "

Oh, come one now, don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel. If you don't know the words in English, try French, German, Spanish, or any other. :)

[jackdaniels08]

Insignificant percent changes for all major search engines across the board here, basically equivalent to a percentage +/- error. Now let's look at the big picture. Percentage gain over the year and the last several years. That's what counts. I've tried all the major search engines and in the end I just stay with Google. Let's face it. There is a reason Google is the preferred search engine by the majority of the world. It is simply the best bar none and continues to get better all the time. Microsoft Live is so pathetically horrible there are no words in the English language to describe my malignant disgust for it. In fact Live is even worse than that and I will never use it again. Yahoo, Ask, AOL are mediocre at best.

[CTO_Dude]

OMG... clearly you havent looked at Live.com lately. It wipes the floor with Google in image and video search... it's not even close. Let's face it, text relevance is completely commoditized now. So perhaps the reason you dont have "any words" is because you are unable to look outside of the ape cage you live in.

[flickrz]

You definitely should try Yahoo and Live search before commenting. In so many respects they are much better than Google.

[eltoro2827]

"Microsoft Live is so pathetically horrible there are no words in the English language to describe my malignant disgust for it. "


what a little biyatch. did you copy this from a google book?

[Super2online]

Your hatred for Live.com highlights your ignorance of a superior product. Do yourself a favor and bring them up side by side in two instances of your browser and compare video and image features. Hands down Live.com is a superior product not only in display and features, but in breadth of volume as well.

[eltoro2827]

google is horrible. stopped using it 3 years ago.

[jackdaniels08]

It's all about the data. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/18/google-shows-healthy-january-growth-in-us-search-volume/
A few opinions on these comment boards are just that. Data and facts always win over a handful of slanted opinions. Data is king period.

[bonesbautista]

I'll admit that I was really into Google a few years ago, but their search results are really off more often now and IMO I get results that are paid for priority and are at the top of my list of results but have nothing to do with what I'm searching for. Google's switch in NA to Teleatlas mapping data was a really bad move, and so many businesses on GMaps aren't relevant anymore.

Live.com's maps, search results, and accuracy have gotten better and are now IMO offering a more-complete package. I'm not too sure about Yahoo, but I've switched my iPhone default search engine in Safari to Yahoo and use Live Maps for traffic (love the Inrix feed).

Google's just a sinking ship, there just too much crap in the closet and portals for their data - nobody there is keeping their ship righted. Sad, that.

[lonestarState]

BuildaSearch.com is great for people wanting to create a customized search engine. It has been out for about 6 months but with every release it simply gets better and better. You can create Live.com or BOSS search engines.

[jackdaniels08]

Let's put it all into perspective shall we. Let's dig into the details by Comscore. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/18/google-shows-healthy-january-growth-in-us-search-volume/

[Vegaman_Dan]

Okay, I'll admit I hadn't tried Live before, but these comments made me look and while I still have the Google toolbar on my browser, side by side comparisons of the same search terms seems to give more relevant results on Live. I've read the stories and even the consipiracies by commenters here in the comments sections in the past that Google results are modified by reader input/review as well as advertising / money paid to Google for higher rankings. That's all hooey, but when you compare side to side results, I can certainly see where some of those suspicions come from.

I find Google easier to use for quick answers, but for something in depth, I think I'll need to look at another search engine like Live, Yahoo, or similar.

I also signed up for Live Mesh and THAT has been pretty cool. I can now access my work PC from home right through all the firewalls. The ability to have a folder in the virtual desktop online that is automatically synched to any other machine I log onto has been handy already. There's no manual work- you just save the file to the folder from whatever machine and it's available on any other machine directly. Or you can do a remote desktop connection through it just as well. I was rather impressed by this and it's free.

I like free.

[piperleanne]

bonesbautista wrote: "Google's just a sinking ship, there just too much crap in the closet and portals for their data - nobody there is keeping their ship righted. Sad, that."

A sinking ship? The numbers seem to disagree with you: 8.5 billion CORE searches were performed on Google.com in January, versus 2.8 billion on Yahoo.com and 1.1 billion on MSN/Live. Regarding latter, paying people to use a search engine doesn't make it better, it just makes the business model stupid. And that combined 1 billion core searches performed on AOL and Ask.com? That's still Google, playing the wizard behind the curtain.

Oh, but this is just the US.....

eltoro2827 said: "google is horrible. stopped using it 3 years ago."

If you stopped using Google 3 years ago, then you have nothing relevant to say about Google today.

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