New stats from monitoring service StatCounter suggest that for the second time since its launch, Microsoft’s Bing has surpassed Yahoo Search as the second most used search engine in the United States. Shortly after publicly debuting the new service, Bing already jumped over Yahoo Search – if only for one day – which many attributed to the launch momentum. But Bing has proven to be a very solid product that many seem keen to try out even after a month.
According to the new data, Bing took 12.9% of the US market like comScore had earlier measured. With the strong jump, Bing comes out ahead of Yahoo Search (10.15%), while Mountain View remains the undisputed king of the mountain with a US market share of 75%.
StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen comments on the leapfrogging of Yahoo Search by Bing, saying: “The jump in Bing’s share may reflect a positive review of the search engine compared to Google which appeared online in the New York Times on the 8th and in the print version on the 9th July.” I’m not really sure if that is in fact the reason and if this isn’t just the service’s regular growth path. After all, Microsoft has shown a remarkable drive to keep the momentum for its decision engine going, recently adding Twitter messages to search results and bringing the search platform to its Hotmail service. Surely one newspaper article can’t be the only reason for its steady rise in share?
In any event, while Google shouldn’t be particularly worried about losing its dominance on the search market yet, the other players in the field better be watching Bing’s progress very closely. Microsoft is doing it right, and users are noticing, too.
Update: as a commenter points out, judging by the graph Yahoo Search is holding quite steady while Google seems to mirror Bing’s market share evolution. Check it out:
Funny. I just switched my default search engine in Chrome to Bing.
Heh! I do admit that Bing & Chrome go hand in hand together.
I just wish Google got ride of the comments section in the links (as I find them to be annoying).
I have been using it past couple of weeks and Bing is the default search engine in my firefox toolbar.
There are so many small features that impressed me besides the quality results. Type “traffic 93023″ and the first result, gives you the traffic for the zip code. Search for a url, analyzes url and gives suggestion. Goto a news article from news search,when you are viewing the article at external site it suggests other related news articles. Every day I find something new.It is very un-miscrosoft’sih. That is why I like it and will continue to use it.
Yes, I miss google maps.I type “google maps” in bing and use it from there.
It took a while to get to used to the interface after using Google so many users but it is funny, now Google screen looks bit ugly to me. Great job Bing team.
Impressive! Powerset technologies in action. It proves to be a useful acquisition after all.
I was thinking the same thing!
Yeah, it definitely works somehow.
A side note: PowerSet technologies did not have any major effect on the Bing features you see. They were in progress long before the acquisition (though it’s possible the people from PowerSet helped out with some details of the final implementation).
You can see PowerSet technologies directly in action in the semi-hidden bing “reference” section.
For example, search for “Stephen Wolfram”. At the bottom of the page, you’ll see “Learn more about Stephen Wolfram”. When you click that link, you get powerset technology.
Now, if you then do a search directly in the search box on the reference result page, you’ll be searching directly in the reference section (which gives different kinds of results from the other sections).
You also get these reference results from the main search if you see “reference” in the left bar on certain search results.
They don’t use any of the Powerset technology in Bing, not yet
yup google’s disdain for design is starting to byte them in the asterisk
@”Update: as a commenter points out, judging by the graph Yahoo Search is holding quite steady while Google seems to mirror Bing’s market share evolution. Check it out:”
It seems to me questionable about the truthfulness of the data. It looks like people are moving from Google to Bing but not from yahoo to Bing…hmm… something is really odd here?
May be you people who claim changed your default search to Bing, I am sure you have been spending a bit more time to find what you need in most of your search attempts….
I tried some time your way and finally abandoned Bing for good as I found my self tweaking search phrases or moving to second and third pages of results… On the other hand Google with no tweaking of search phrases, I get satisfactory result on the first page!
i typed in “traffic” without the zip code, and i still got traffic for my zip. nice.
wow, bing really doing something now.
Actually the start is impressive for Bing.. But it may be because of the curiosity and hype created by Microsoft by investing millions in advertising which can die out. I am just waiting to see how Bing shapes in next six months.
My default browser is Google, my default search engine is Explorer (the thang with the “e”), my default operating system is Firefox, and my default rims foe my Excalade is Chrome.
Oh, and I love to have a supersized order of Bing when I visit my favorite restaurant: Mrs. Wong’s Greasy Chinee Food.
It’s not at all suprising. I’ve been using Bing for a few weeks now alongside Google and I have to say it’s impressing me greatly. As for Yahoo, they might as well give up the ghost. They’ve fallen so far behind, it’s literally game over.
Yo, Imma have to file a Motion to Dismiss that lame comment of yours Internet Lawyer !!! LOL
On top of that, imma file a Section 127 Motion For Sanction Against you !!1
The same was true for Microsoft before Bing though, right? What if Yahoo pumps out a brand new engine that has results on par with Google?
I’m not saying they will; I’m just saying it makes no sense to encourage Yahoo to give up.
Switched my search engine in Chrome to Bing briefly. Pretty satisfied with the results. However, local search and maps default to Live Maps. I prefer Google Maps so I switched back to Google.
It is interesting to see that when the Bing curve shoots up the google curve dips. The Yahoo curve is steady all the way. Does that mean Yahoo search has got a loyal set of users?
Good point, it looks exactly mirrored come to look at it more closely.
is probably because the majority of Yahoo! search are conducted on its web portal.
Bing and Google on other hand are purely just for search. There are not web portals, so because of this, users tend to switch between engines more often.
Try the Bing, Google, & Yahoo blind test it should tell you about your search preference http://bit.ly/l9rQS
Who out there still has Yahoo.com as their homepage though, I mean that is the only reason I am finding people using the Yahoo.com search engine. I would say shortly after Google hit the scene the once “loyal users of Yahoo” quickly switched allegiances
Yahoo is a dying company. I don’t know what will happen to them but it won’t end well unless they sell to Microsoft.
I’ve been wondering about Yahoo’s curve not quite dipping either. But if you look at the overall traffic on Yahoo’s site and compare it to Microsoft’s traffic, it does show Microsoft gaining on Yahoo.
http://domusinc...g-on-yahoo.html
I changed my Firefox home page both at work and at home to Bing. I noticed that for programming related queries Bing is still not perfect. But in general i seach first using Bing and if i’m not satisfied i check with Google.
Just my two cents in the global effort to bring competition to the search business.
People are not married to any search engine. It is OK, and better for us if we use multiple search engines while doing our research.
These results are not surprising in the slightest. Bing replaced two of Microsoft’s search products, Live and MSN. If you look at previous trends you will notice that both of these services’ userbases adds up to be just about the same as Yahoo with the occasional spike, which is what we are seeing here.
Live and MSN were actually never separate search engines. You could search Live (now Bing) from the search bar on the MSN portal, but search market share was never broken out separately. Bing surpassing Yahoo in market share is actually new and a major shift for us SEM folks.
Not a great surprise. I believe Yahoo will continue to slide down the search engine market, but I can’t see anyone rivaling Google in the slightest. Despite all the hype over Bing. It’s just not possible.
Those are compelling arguments.
looks like bing won’t rise more than 20%.
Wow…they do mirror each other.
http://bit.ly/ksObs
cool, added that to the post.
looks like something is really ODD!!! You guys should dig more deeper to let us know what/how their method is used to collect data and come up with these results?
wait a minute… people still use Yahoo! Search?
Glad to see the hard work is starting to pay off. I like Bing – a lot. (I should, I’ll be working for MS on Bing soon.) It has many great features, but my absolute is the travel section (bing.com/travel).
Funny thing! google seems to be destroying OS markey with their upcoming chrome OS release and Microsoft wanna kills Google’s Domination with Bing.
Google Destroys OS Market with Google Chrome OS !!!! Do you really believe that Linux Kernel + Chrome browser can beat Windows + Games + Office + ……. + Chrome Browser?
Not everybody plays games and uses office like you, Mohammed.
My parents, for example, do NOTHING outside the browser. I bet the same is true for millions of people.
And for these millions, why pay for Windows when you could get Chrome for free?
Flip the Bing graph over its horizontal axis. Push it up to Google’s line graph. MATCH!
Perhaps Google should be more worries than Yahoo.
Google at 90% market share. Bing at 10%.
Wow – this is urgent breaking news!
Beating the second largest search engine – how is that not breaking news?
And by that logic – Windows 90%, Google OS 0% – why did that become breaking news? – because now you’ve got a contender.
I think both are good breaking news pieces.
+1
When it comes to business, no one can deny that Microsoft knows what they are doing and they have both the cash and the mentality to try out certain things and let them fail if they do, but they are not afraid to try it out. That is something that many companies do not do simply because they do not have the resources or the mindset to do it. Regardless of what the various fanboys think of their products, people generally are happy with them.
Google should be worried at this point. If Microsoft wants to take over the search engine market, they could do it, and more importantly, they can wait it out until that happens. Microsoft, unlike other companies, can accept the single percentage point increases and not worry because they do not have a financial issue that is usually tied to other companies.
Google was first in bringing everything to the web but to keep others from taking over, they will have to work very hard at it. The various google productivity products (Docs, Spreadsheets, etc…) are very very basic (provide about 3% of the functionality) and do not compare at all to the Zohos suite (for example) and other products. Further, Microsoft has demonstrated for years that they can build complex web apps and operate them (Hotmail, Exchange OWA). So it is just a matter of time before Office will be ported (in all its glory) to the web and people will start to take notice. Does anyone doubt that if Word or Excel are web based and free to use that anyone would still use Google’s products? I don’t care how much of a fanboy you are, you still can tell the difference between a good product and a sub-standard product.
I, for one, am very happy about this since it will only lead to more and more innovation on the part of both companies.
Thumbs up Dude, you totally nailed it
Apparently Office is moving to the web on Monday. http://is.gd/1tKLR
Excellent! Spot on.
I’m not really sure why Techcrunch and other respectable blogs are quoting StatsCounter. Ok, it’s page view eyeball bait, but c’mon is it really worth trashing your credibility guys?
StatsCounter is a single-source toolbar with a tiny sample of searchers. They’re a joke compared to the bigger 3rd party panels.
StatsCounter’s search market share data is a transparent ploy to get attention for their half-baked server-side analytics package.
Take a look at their About Us.
“Stats are based on aggregate data collected by StatCounter on a sample exceeding 4 billion pageviews per month collected from across the StatCounter network of more than 3 million websites.”
Anybody that knows anything knows that 3M yields way way way more than 4B pageviews. Did they make an amatuerish mistake and mean pages? StatsCounter needs to explain this gross mistake and, while their at it, explain their methodology.
Seriously, if you think StatsCounter is a reputable data source, think again.
You can argue about any data monitoring service, but comScore pegged Bing’s US market share at a similar 12.1% a couple of weeks ago.
http://www.tech...-to-12-percent/
Wake me up when yahoo and microsoft release their traffic data.
I’m not interested what a company that tracks less then 1% of total
search traffic has to say in order to jump on PR band wagon.
They already had 3 press releases every time Bing ‘took over’ Yahoo!.
Garbage.
So the only data you trust is the data provided by the party who has the most to gain by inflating the data?
.. how fascinating that spikes in Bing cause drops in Google, and vice versa.
With a P/E of 12, a % ownership in FB, and 13% of the US search market with Bing, should we be looking at MSFT as a viable stock buy these days?
Nobody questions statscounter’s numbers? They look completely different than hitwise, neilsen and comscore.
All of the statistics from hitwise, neilsen, comscore and statcounter are garbage.
This smells just a bit fishy to me: Google and MS search are *perfect* substitutes, totaling within 86% +/- 1% of total share *every* day? I suppose it’s possible but I wouldn’t expect real-world data to be that clean.
Worth noting also that this trend did not start with the Bing launch:
http://bit.ly/iixCI
Yeah. It’s very intriguing that the mirror is so perfect.
Virtually nobody switches to or from Yahoo. Users flip only between Microsoft and Google.
I still prefer google but do hop on bing to compare and contrast a few times a day.
You guys really believe Bing is gonna take over Yahoo! mouaaaww… we’re talking Statcounter data… irrelevant stuff so to speak…
If google users switched to Bing, may be , they could not find what they wished to find in google. If so, it is not fair to say google go downside. Still the best is google
If the google users switch to Bing, may be, they could not find what they wished to find. Still, google seems the best
I’m not sure any of these Bing stats are indicative of what people actually want. On my corporate laptop I use what they give me – meaning IE. I noticed the other day when one of my coworkers entered a search term in the toolbar, it took him straight to Bing instead of LiveSearch or whatever it used to be.
So anyone doing actual stats should separate the users who actually meant to use Bing from the vast majority of clueless folk on the internet who use whatever pops up in their IE by default.
Bing is absolutely full of spam and terrible results. Maybe if there were some kind of index that showed how many of those searches ended in someone finding what they were looking for this would be interesting. Query volume doesn’t tell you much. Just how many forced-installs and forced-selection-as-default-search-engine MS is capable of.
Really? My experience is differrent. I find the quality of the results no less than Google’s.
Could you please care to share couple of searches that you found were messed up in Bing. My experience so far has been very positive and I wonder why google failed to innovate Search UI , travel etc.
Interesting. I don’t know how comscore/statcounter compile these numbers, but I wrote a script using the Google Analytics Export API that ran over several websites I manage, and the breakdown I’m seeing (the script aggregates) is more along the lines of Google- 61%, Yahoo ~11%, Bing ~6% as of yesterday- as opposed to 66%,13%,4% a month ago.
Maybe the numbers are industry-sensitive, or Analytics just hasn’t mastered detecting Bing traffic yet?
I’d be curious to see what other individuals are seeing according to their javascript-based tracker solutions.
There are some vertical players that will gain traction but it may just be at the expense of other publishers, not search engines.
You know honestly, 9 times out of 10, both Bing and Google have mostly similar results. And that makes Bing at least good enough in my book.
C’mon guys. Haven’t you noticed that everyone on Windows XP or Vista (almost everyone) is being asked to upgrade to IE 8? I’d guess that most of those new Bing users are people upgrading to IE 8 and getting Bing as the default search provider. Live Search probably saw a similar bump when Microsoft used it’s Windows Update functionality as free advertising and almost forced adoption of IE 7. It’s just another example of Microsoft leveraging it’s operating system advantage to promote it’s browser and online services.
Good point
If you’ve actually upgraded to IE8 yourself you will probably realize that the upgrade process does not touch your search provider settings.
If your search provider was set to Google before the upgrade, it will still be Google after the upgrade.
The uptick in Bing users is likely organic growth due to either a good product or a good marketing campaign.
I see a valid argument there .. but man this time I am loving it.
Happy binging
After a long time M$ has really pleased me with Bing and Win 7 …. Both rock!
Just like last time, Yahoo! Search overtakes again!
http://gs.statc...090601-20090711
Why are these one day fluctuations even being reported? And who is statcounter?
Bing has been partnering quite well especially in the recruitment domain with Payscale and Careerbuilder.
They have a better chance to integrate with Facebook than Google. For MS Bing is just another albeit important product, they can integrate with various niche search providers.
For Google search is the brand, they cannot allow too much data credited to other search providers as it dilutes their brand. And they need to push ads, MS does not or can go easy on that front as they have a diversified revenue stream.
I am not sure how this will play out, but MS has some cards on its side.
Try this on bing image.
http://www.bing...&FORM=BIFD#
& click on show maps
I want my data from a source that has little to gain and has a large contributor base too; this report is about 1% (maybe) of the total internet surfing activity, and is valueless in calculating anything really.
I find it comical that a few months ago, people were like “Bing sucks! noobs!111″ – now it’s being revealed each and everyday that Bing is a solid search engine.
It’s amazing what lengths people go to in the name of fanboyism, isn’t it?
Till be take a long tome got Bing to overtake Google. It can overtake Yahoo becoz the margin between them is very less.
realy nice article thanks