Bing takes a bite out of Google in July
By Dave Jeyes
Comscore’s latest search data shows that Bing grew a modest 0.5 percent in July. However it also claimed 0.3 percent of Google’s market share for the first time ever.
Over the last two months Bing has grown by 90 basis points which seems like a small number. Starting from 8 percent that represents 11 percent market share growth over two months.
In June the new competitor in search only claimed share from now-partner Yahoo before eking gains from Google in July. While Google only saw its share fall to 64.7 percent from 65 percent, Bing is the first search engine to take share from Google.
Until now Google has been a runaway train in gobbling up search market share with the competition fighting over its scraps. Microsoft has proven that Google isn’t completely invincible as the dominant search engine.
Still the latest search engine to come out of Microsoft still has a long way to go if it wants to be on par with Google. Bing still lags Google in search share by over 55 percent.
Catching up with Google will be no easy hurdle for Microsoft. Even with its massive campaign of television commercials, Bing will need to win over loyal Google fans with innovative new features.
So far Bing’s features have basically mimicked the successful features of Google’s search engine. And Google still leads in the sheer number of ways that it allows users to search the Web.
That doesn’t even get into the speed and relevance of Google’s results. These two factors are the most important ways that a search engine can build value with customers.
A new name, slick interface and an onslaught of advertising has helped Bing gain some momentum in the first few months of its existence. If Bing wants to supplant Google as the leading search engine, it will have to prove its worth to consumers.
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August 18th, 2009
Heh, that’s a tad sensationalist. Microsoft has a long way to go before it PROVES anything in the search market. Honestly I think they’re wasting their time with the Yahoo deal. Most Yahoo users search Yahoo because they like Yahoo. If they wanted to use a MS search engine, they would use an MS search engine. I predict many will defect to Google after the transition takes place.
August 18th, 2009
@Glenn
Did you actually read the article or just the headline? And have you been able to wrest search share from Google’s iron fist.
Yeah… I didn’t think so.
August 18th, 2009
@Glenn (ahh, the second one…)
You seem to have missed my point so I will elaborate.
Yes I read the article completely, and what I mean to say is addressing the statement “Microsoft has proven that Google isn’t completely invincible as the dominant search engine.”
Microsoft still has a very small market share, especially considering the massive amounts of work and money thay’ve poured into this endeavour. The stats are showing that people are still, in the vast majority, very comfortable with their search engine of choice. You’ll notice that bing’s early stats are simply MSN, live, etc being replaced by bing.
Given that bing is the new kid on the block it’s understandable that some people are moving to it to give it a try. Many will likely go back because Google, for most people, is what people are used to and it provides very relevant serach results. As a side note, in my experience I’ve been unimpressed with bing’s relevance of search results.
They’ll likely grab a sizeable chunk of the Yahoo userbase because they don’t know what they are using now. They’ll just notice a little search icon replaced with a little bing icon. The rest would likely defect to Google because they are aware of the choices and find it to be superior (that’s how they got so high in the stats in the first place).
Phew, now that that’s done, it’s time to check iGoogle!
August 19th, 2009
iGoogle with it’s fascist iron fisted removal of the tabs.
Viva la work arounds.