Opsie! Don’t look now but it seems that Microsoft’s $100 million marketing investment coupled with the slew of enhancements and usability features that it is introducing the past couple of months is finally reaping them rewards. And the reward comes by way of an increase of 0.4% in their U.S. search market share for August.
That figure may look small in numbers but what makes this sweet for Bing is the fact that it is the only search engine that grew in market share for August, data from comScore revealed (as reported by TechCrunch).
Google’s search query volume in the U.S. decreased by 0.1%, Yahoo’s share did not change .
If we are to add up all the increases in Bing’s search market share since its launch in May, we now have a total of 1.3%. Again it may not be that much but the important thing to note is that it is steadily gaining since then. A few days ago, Nielsen declared Bing as the fastest growing search engine.
Should Google start worrying about this now?
Google is has to face the reality. If Microsoft want it, they get it. This is the best way to tell MSFT bashers to shut up.
This might be because of the launch of the bing with new interface and search methodology. If the same to be continued MS has to work hard to implement new features to attract customers.
The gain in share by Bing could also be the result of the growing number of people switching to IE8 (from older IE browsers). In IE8 Bing is installed as default search provider. If you want a different search provider you have to be very motivated. IE8 keeps trying to push you to Bing.
So, a gain in share does not necessarily mean that people think it is a better search engine.