Bing gains search market share, nears 10 per cent
Posted: 18 November 2009 0953 hrs

	Photos  of
	Related News • Microsoft's Bing teams up with WolframAlpha

WASHINGTON : Microsoft's new Internet search engine Bing increased its share of the US search market in October, edging up half-a-point to nearly 10 per cent, online tracking firm comScore said Tuesday.

It was the fifth month in a row of modest gains in search share for Bing, which Microsoft unveiled in June accompanied by a 100-million-dollar advertising campaign in a bid to challenge search juggernaut Google.

Bing's share of the lucrative search and advertising market increased by 0.5 per cent in October to 9.9 per cent, comScore said.

Google also added half-a-point in October to reach 65.4 per cent.

Yahoo!, Microsoft's search partner, saw its market share decline 0.8 per cent in October to 18.0 per cent.

Ask.com was unchanged at 3.9 per cent while AOL.com lost 0.1 per cent to 2.9 per cent.

Yahoo! and Microsoft unveiled a 10-year Web search and advertising partnership in July that set the stage for a joint offensive against Google.

Under the agreement, Yahoo! will use Microsoft's search engine on its own sites while Yahoo! will provide the exclusive global sales force for premium advertisers.

The agreement between the Internet portal and software giant, which is subject to review by US anti-trust regulators, is expected to close in early 2010.

Microsoft has rolled out a number of innovations and tweaks to Bing in recent months in its bid to chip away at Google's dominance in Web search.

Last week, Microsoft announced it would incorporate answers from another new Web search engine, WolframAlpha, to queries in the fields of nutrition, health, and advanced mathematics.

- AFP/il