Is Bing making headway?

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 02 July 2009 10:21

Your IT - Home IT

"Bing has increased Microsoft's share of the search market by 1 percent in the US", trumpets one analytics firm. But do the numbers add up?

According to figures release by web analytics firm StatCounter, Microsoft's share of the US search 'market' has risen by one percentage point between April and June.

In April, Microsoft Windows Live Search and MSN Search accounted for 7.21 percent of the US search market.

Bing, Microsoft's new-look search engine replacing the previous two was launched at the beginning of June.

"At first sight, a 1 percent increase in market share does not appear to be a huge return on the investment Microsoft has made in Bing but the underlying trend appears positive," said StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen.

"Steady if not spectacular might be the best way to describe performance to date."

Just how steady is it?

StatCounter's figures show Microsoft's aggregate share for the final Bing-less week was 9.11 percent. During Bing's launch week - an event that gained significant coverage - that crept up to 9.21 percent, before ebbing back to around 7.5 percent for a fortnight.

That was the sort of figure that Microsoft's old search engines were managing during April and early May.

But there is some good news for Microsoft: StatCounter gives Bing an 8.45 percent share for the last full week in June. That's a move in the right direction for the company, but it still doesn't match Live/MSN's last fling.

Where is the gain, such that it is, coming from? Find out on page 2.