It would appear that Google"s claims that Microsoft was stealing search results from them has not stopped anyone from using the service.
In results published today, Bing.com went from 10.60% market share in December 2010, up to 12.81% market share just last month, January 2011. That"s an increase of 21% month-to-month. In the same time Yahoo! search was down four points, but overall Bing-powered search (which operates Yahoo! and Bing) was up from 25.77% to 27.44%, a total increase of 6%.
Meanwhile, Google saw a 2% drop going from 69.67% to 67.95% in the same timeframe.
In a press release, Experian Hitwise stated that Bing-powered search also received a higher success rate in webpage clicks. Essentially, this means that 81% of searches that took place on both Yahoo! and Bing resulted in the user actually clicking through to a website. Google"s success rate was quite a lot lower at 65%.
It"s important to mention that the study doesn"t indicate whether the user found what they were looking for before ever clicking through to a website. It appears that the search engine wars are heating up again!
Image credit: Experian