Microsoft Pri0

Welcome to Microsoft Pri0: That's Microspeak for top priority, and that's the news and observations you'll find here from Seattle Times reporter Sharon Chan.

E-mail Sharon| Subscribe | Blog Home| Brier Dudley's Blog

December 27, 2007 2:00 PM

Microsoft search share dropping, Nielsen reports

Posted by Benjamin J. Romano

Microsoft corralled only 881 million searches in November, about 12 percent of the U.S. total, according to the latest figures from Nielsen Online. That's down from 13.8 percent in October. Yahoo held on to second place, though its slice of the pie -- 17.9 percent -- was thinner than its share of 18.8 percent in October. Google, meanwhile, climbed to 57.7 percent.

One bright spot for Microsoft, perhaps, is that MSN/Windows Live Search claimed 27.8 "searches per searcher." When it refreshed its search engine this fall, one goal was to make it stickier -- to get existing users to use it more. Microsoft's searches per searcher in November beats Yahoo's 23.7. But both were down from the previous month. And guess whose searches per searcher increased, albeit slightly? If you said "Google," you're probably smarter than a fifth grader.

The November numbers for the top three:

Google: 4.3 billion queries, 57.7 percent market share, 40.8 searches per searcher
Yahoo: 1.3 billion queries, 17.9 percent market share, 23.7 searches per searcher
MSN/Windows Live Search: 881 million queries, 12 percent market share, 27.8 searches per searcher

Nielsen Online has the full list available here: (2-page PDF)

Digg | Newsvine