Every month since its launch, Microsoft’s Bing search engine keeps taking a little bit of market share. In August, Bing gained 0.4 percent to end the month with 9.3 percent of search query volumes in the U.S., according to comScore’s Qsearch estimates. Meanwhile, Google’s share came down 0.1 percent to 64.6 percent and Yahoo/s remained flat at 19.3 percent.
In other words, Bing showed the only significant gain, while everyone else stayed relatively flat. That $100 million marketing campaign must be working, or maybe it’s the improvements Bing is making to the search experience, or maybe it’s both. Whatever it is, it is translating into nearly a half-point market share gain every month for the past three months.
Bing is up a total of 1.3 percent from its launch at the end of May. Yahoo, however, is down 0.8 percent in that same period, so the combined gain is only half a point. But Yahoo has stabilized its share, and if Bing can continue to nibble away at the same rate, Google will have to start to actually worry.
In August, it grew faster than Google for the first time, with a 31.9 percent annual increase in search queries compared to 21.6 percent growth for Google and 16.8 percent for Yahoo. How long can Bing keep it up?
U.S. Core Search Share, August 2009 (Source: comScore qSearch)
| 64.6% | -0.1% m/m | +1.3% y.y | |
| Yahoo | 19.3% | 0.0% m/m | -0.4% y/y |
| Microsoft | 9.3% | +0.4% m/m | +0.9% y/y |
| AOL | 3.0% | -0.01% m/m | -1.3% y/y |
| Ask | 3.9% | 0.03% m/m | -0.4% y/y |
(Table below via JPMorgan analyst Imran Khan)
Wow, a whole 9.3%? If I had numbers like that in Vegas…I’d be an indentured servant to a casino until I was 80.
Seriously, make news of this when they start making a real break into Google territory. Until that happens, it sounds like you’re just looking for story fodder.
Yeah … 9.3% of searches everyday !! imagine what it can be 100 Million ? 200 million ?? 500 million ?
If i were them… i can build a new Earth
They DID make a break, for the last couple of years Google has been marginalizing all other search engines and extending it’s search. Now Bing cut off a little piece for it’s self, this obviously does not mean that they can compete with Google on equal terms, but it means that they might just be able to do so in the next couple of years.
So by your logic Apple should stop making personal computers and operating systems.
OK.
Bing has a chance – they finally dared to not look like Google, and UI matters to consumers. They also have arguably better presentation and good enough results. Its MSFT first really good attempt to win search share. Differentiating is the key, can’t just look like Google with even the same quality of results, that won’t be enough. new look and nav are great ideas.
Just linked back to this article when I was writing a blog post this evening. I was analyzing the stats on one of my websites (Penn State Snowboard Club) and noticed that 96% of my users were using Google….. only 2% for Bing & Yahoo. Crazy.
Also worth noting that 58% of the college students were using Macs.
Here’s the article if u are interested in seeing all the stats:
http://plzkthxb...nts-using-macs/
Bing is on a rampage with one mission from the very beginning: destroy Google.
Assuming it’s a $100M marketing campaign for one year, at +0.5%/month, that’s a 6% gain per year. So they should reach 50% in roughly 8 years and $1B in marketing.
Exactly there is a possibility .. well done Microsoft .. finally taking steps forward to success..
Cheers,
Daina
“destory Google” is absurd goal, it should be to win a large portion of the market who responds to a different experience. To win over up and coming internet users who may not have a Google affinity yet with a cooler search service.
Why?! Google make money from what? Ads?
Less search share = less money from ads.
Google don’t really know how to make money.
And I’m a 100% Google user.
I still haven’t seen any of the ads, but I’m very curious if the growth in bing has been due to the press coverage rather than the ads.
I’ve used it a few times, and was very impressed with the expience when looking for a hotel last week.
Any way we can subset these stats to compare markets where bing has been running the ads vs where they haven’t?
no because this is a US chart
anyways bing is awesome. i like it better than google
steve ballmer! i see you!
I wouldn’t say any one search engine is better than the other regarding query results, but I have to admit that Bing does have some major advantages in the eye candy and general user interface. Google is really showing its age when compared to Bing.
For instance, I now use Bing for image research and searches are 50/50 depending on which computer I am on.
Jon @ WoodMarvels.com
The thing I like about Bing is it seems to be more precise. I play drums and was looking for a review of a Paiste 2002 19″ crash cymbal. Google gave me endless retailers but no reviews, Bing gave me reviews straight up.
It just feels cleaner and more focused.
PedalPete, check out Bing’s ads on Youtube. Some of them are pretty good.
I think this ad campaign may actually have legs. Just this week, 2 different people have given me their own jokey rendition of these ads when I asked them a question:
http://www.yout...h?v=iZUVcYX6W80
http://www.yout...h?v=yIxfk3hS0uU
Maybe you haven’t seen them because they are being smart. Lately, i had a listing on craigslist. Then in the answers that i got regarding the this listing, there was this Bing ad: “Microsoft brings you a new way to search the web. Try Bingâ„¢ now”
So Bing is gaining peoples trust! Honestly I don’t use Bing but I am interested about their cyber competition. They will fight and we will win.
I applaud Microsoft’s efforts around Bing and its slowly growing market share. Still a long way to go but people are taking notice. It would be interesting to see the attrition of users acquired now and their activity in the future. http://www.trendslate.com
its the default in IE and its good enough that people wont actively go searching to replace it with google. and its frickin AWESOME for porn.
live.com was the default for ie also. you obviously dont understand the concept of growth
yea but as I said. It was so shitty even a computer idiot would look for a replacement. Thanks for replying I feel like part of the reallll blogosphere where it really is snarky and lame.
I think Yan is saying that many people who have live.com as the default page go to google.com to search while still have live.com as the default (maybe they don’t know how to change it, my dad don’t).
And you obviously forgot that the same thing happened to live.com when it first launched as the default.
No, what happened when Live launched was a bump in Live share because they consolidated all their search into one engine. In fact, it was DOWN vs the previous total.
.5% monthly growth is significant. It’s FireFox-type growth. It adds up, and isn’t explained by an ad campaign (ad campaigns will produce a single sustained bump, not a growth curve) UNLESS people are trying it and liking it… in which case, well, that means Bing is working.
Disclosure: I switched to Bing awhile ago. When I first did, I’d have to Google about once a day for stuff that Bing couldn’t find. Then it was once a week. Then… yesterday was the first time I had in almost 3 weeks.
The engine’s getting better, they’re adding features, they’re out-Googling Google. And, as a user, I’m happy. Especially with Bing Travel.
I would probably use Bing more often, but I always just use the search box in Firefox and that is set to google so Bing doesn’t get the attention it deserves from me.
They still lag google in a lot of search metrics. Tech stuff especially. When looking to repair a 2008 server I go to google. If I want hotels or tickets bing displays the results in a more useful manner. But I really hope google doesnt follow with all the widgetry on the page. I like plain white with blue links and a small text blurb. no rollovers, additional search suggestions etc.
“Search metrics” is far too vague. They lag in index size, and user feedback via clicks. And, having been using Bing for a few months, the index AND the quality of results is getting better. I use Google less and less and less.
Can someone do the same for a world chart and see how Google, Yahoo, Bing compare.
nice results, summary… bing still sucks
how does this translate into “bing still sucks”?
At work, we are still stuck with IE6 and my homepage is always google.com. But, whenever they push down an update to XP, I’ll be damned if it doesn’t change my IE home page to Bing every friggin time. Its really annoying. And, I’ll typically see that when other users open their browser, its set at Bing of course, so they then go to Google to start a search. Its as if they either gave up setting a different home page or just have no clue that you can. But, I’m sure many people just start using Bing since its always in their face now anyway.
Aside from that force-feeding behavior, I use it sometimes and find that they are doing some interesting things to enhance searching. So, hopefully that’ll help keep Goog on their toes as well.
As long as they keep paying me w/ bing cash back I’ll use ‘em.
But as soon as they stop bing cash back, I gone.
This gain happened because of the advertising on other media networks like VibrantMedia which allows them to have search on their content text link. I am sure this will give them a boost from search only.
Sigh.
No, it didn’t. Microsoft has ALWAYS done those ads. And all they did was slow the descent of Microsoft’s share vs Google.
Bing is gaining because it’s solid. There’s actually NO other explanation for sustained growth.
Old ad programs like Vibrant hold the dam up. New ad programs produce a single sustained bump, not a growth curve.
People sticking around and using it more produces growth. Nothing else.
So it may not be a natural search from a search box like Google and Yahoo.
It’s my first time to hear about Bing. I visit it. And it seems good. It is very simple and yet faster. Thanks for sharing this information. But I think I will still stick with Google. Honestly I really like Google.
The only porn search which does work fine is – “porn”. If you try something not so obvious like “bdsm” you won’t get what you want. Bing sucks. They suck as a porn search engine. Just kidding.
turn off search filter
Everything going right for Microsoft in case of Bing and Windows 7.
I heard about bing, but personally I am not ready to change. I just don’t trust bing compared with google. Maybe it will take time.
I switched all my default searches to use Bing just to see if I would notice any difference. Its been a few weeks and I haven’t switched back. Bing rocks!
I also happen to be wearing a Bing T-Shirt that I bought in Redmond last week. Good timing
Bing’s image search rocks
Geez Eric. That’ll be 6 whole % for 12mths at this rate! Wow! I’m syre you could have thought of a more realistic and believable intro to your pretty results summary…like,
Despite $100M Spend Microsoft Search Only Gains 0.5% per Month – Bing!
Growth always increases – it is not a linear function as there are multiplication factors: each users tells to more users.
Umm… do the maths. Presuming that gains are solely due to advertising (which I doubt), 6% of the search market for $100m is good value when one considers the value of the US search market.
I don’t think that bing is growing. Just check alexa rank http://www.alex...teinfo/bing.com Bing is loosing market share.
Yeah… let’s ignore the companies that live and die by their data, and instead rely on Alexa data… Sigh.
And you obviously forgot that the same thing happened to live.com when it first launched as the default.
Bing is a very good search engine and it will just keep getting better. Although, I hope they fix there homepage it is very bland.
C’mon guys, let’s stop publishing good news for microsoft! Remember the deal? We buy you banners, and you rally the groupies….
Bing has better image search than Google.
http://www.Binghomepages.com showcases an archive of all the Bing home pages ever since launch day.
Worth a look
would not it be easier for Microsoft Adcenter to start something like Google did with Adsense, pay website owners to encourage their visitors to use Google search. Microsoft could easily do that given how pissed publishers are about recent changes in adsense revenues. website owners would jump on that for an extra buck and we all know that bing search quality is good, once people try it they wont remove it. instead of spending 100 million for billboard advertisement which people see on the street then forget when they get back to home and sit in front of computer, it would be more efficient to make sure people see and engage with you ad while they are browsing internet.
yes you are right , they have to provide a powerful service for publishers and then they can beat Google.
Google recent change makes me suck coz they are controlling the web( blocking sites,sends a rude
emails like they are the god) , i hate to be controlled..
they think themselves gods , i have one question for google
if i gathered 1 million webmaster from all around the world and we put in our robots.txt just this line
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /
what will happen to you “Gods” ??
If you can find one million webmasters that stupid I’d be seriously impressed
I don’t think it’s a bad product, it’s very good, but quite a lot of the growth it has seen is down to it being the default, that’s the only reason I’ve seen people using it for and then they’re going back to it because they liked it.
I want Bing to grow like this a month after month because you should not have a monopoly in any market. Now Google is completely dominating the search engine ranking, so there should be some strong alternatives.
Hmm. Pretty impressive. Bing and Windows 7.. looks like Microsoft is on the right track.
Interesting data. Microsoft is the new Firefox in this race, albeit with bigger pockets.
Haven’t seen much of this marketing campaign that you speak of, didn’t even know they had one, just assumed they were relying on viral techniques. Don’t think google should be getting worried just yet, but no doubt if they do feel under pressure, they’ll probably pull something out of the bag that will secure them as the leading search engine!
.
“In August … Google’s share came down 0.1 percent…”
well
so, if this trend continue, Bing and Yahoo will beat Google in approximately…
50 years…
.
I realise that this is a US blog, with what is primarily a US audience, but I’m much more interested in how Bing is doing globally. What is Bing’s market-share worldwide?
Whilst the US is obviously a massive market, the UK is Google’s 2nd biggest, and here it feels like Bing is still more or less unknown (in fact recent stats suggested that Twitter is bigger than Bing over here). And in places like Germany, Google’s dominance is even greater.
As for the Near/Far East, I’m pretty sure that Yahoo! actually had decent figures in those markets, making its decision to abandon search even harder to understand. If Bing is truly going to take on Google, it needs to grow outside of the US too.
Instead of using one or the other, you could try searching both at the same time using a site like http://www.fuzzfind.com which provides as mashup of search results from Google, Bing, Yahoo and del.icio.us
I think at a certain point the number of searches may not be entirely critical.
If Bing really manages to position itself as the engine for shopping and travel…those are the searches where a lot of the money is.
Google could have a lot of hard to monetize searches and Bing could have a few of the well monetized ones.
Still early days for Bing, but as a participant in the Visual Search launch last week, I can say that I think the additional drive and investment is at least going to spur a wave of additional innovation that consumers will benefit from. http://bit.ly/np8r6 for the Visual Search launch video and some other data.
Google V. Microsoft V. Apple. The battles are brewing. Place your bets gentlemen.
I think the real question first would be: what is Bing’s conversion rate against this growth? This is definitely an amazing growth rate in a market that was thought to be stable for some time, specially that the share eater is Microsoft. Nothing against Microsoft, but they have been demonstrating for years their lack of internet understanding, though I had some hope when they appointed Ray Ozzie which finally seems to start working. I do agree with everybody that Google should seriously worry -specially if the answer for my starting question is positive. I believe they have been loosing sight. With that I mean they have been more and more focused on direct sales and paid ads – which makes sense – but with less attention paid to helping their partners and customers with SEO efforts. After all, even if the minimize ad expenditure of some partners / customers falls within the current economy in favor of cheaper more effective SEO strategies, when successful they act as the important landing pages for other Google ads, which will help keeping the revenue flow. To make it short, I think Google has drifted a bit away from their core vision which should be focused on conversion rather than just selling ads! and if Microsoft really want’s to destroy them, they will simply do the opposite!