Bing sees growth in market share but Google remains dominant

Microsoft-owned search engine Bing hit a significant milestone earlier in the month, when its market share reached 18%.

In the data recorded by comScore in September, Bing showed growth of 0.1% on the previous month, while Yahoo’s market share dropped by 0.1% to 11.3%. Google, however, remained at 66.9%. Ask’s share stayed at 1.3%, while AOL dropped by 0.1% to 2.5%.

With the Powered By score considered – which takes into account other searching tools that use third-party engines – Google has 69.4% of the market, with Bing coming in at 27.2%.

The data also showed that the total number of searches fell by 2%, with Microsoft and Google showing 2% drops, and AOL, Yahoo and Ask searches falling by 3%.

While the smaller sites seem to fluctuate regularly, Google has kept its place at the top of the table, accounting for more than two-thirds of all search traffic. Despite Microsoft making a number of significant adjustments to Bing in the last few months – its new deal with Klout, for example – only marginal gains have been seen.

Here at Pressroom, we’ve become used to seeing Google at the top of these tables, so the latest news comes as no surprise. What is more interesting, however, is to see how even a force as powerful as Microsoft seems unable to make any real progress in the market share league. While many will argue that it does look the part, Bing is failing to captivate users in the way that Google does. This is perhaps why so many businesses focus on meeting the Californian firm’s guidelines and regulations when devising their SEO strategies.

It’s also important to look at how Google’s other ventures are helping it to maintain its status as such a dominant player. Everything the company releases or is involved in – from smartphones and watches to tablets and games consoles – works in harmony with all of Google’s services, including Search. When it’s made so easy for users to find what they’re looking for, why would they want to go anywhere else?