A new report from Hitwise is here, and the short version is as follows: Google wins. The long version includes a few other things of interest, though, including a small gain on Ask’s part.
Ask’s October market share was 4.76 percent, up slightly from its September standing of 4.32 percent. No significant changes to the underlying engine appear to have been made in this period; instead, the only really notable thing was a new advertising campaign in which respectable, demonstration-style videos took the place of chicks with swords and Kato Kaelin.
To move on to Microsoft, the Redmond-based corporation saw its search share decrease from 7.83 percent to 7.42. This might not appear to be too monumental, but Todd Bishop notes, “[L]ast month’s results reflect the launch window for Microsoft’s redesigned Live Search service. If those changes are going to boost Microsoft’s share of U.S. search queries, the Hitwise numbers aren’t showing it yet.”
And if those changes don’t boost Microsoft’s share of U.S. search queries, then it’s unlikely that anything will (at least in the foreseeable future).
As for Yahoo, September’s 22.5 percent turned into 21.65 percent. Yes, from Yahoo’s perspective, that is bad. But Googlers were presumably all grins as their engine grabbed a market share of 64.49 percent, up significantly from 63.55 percent in September.
