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I Meant To Do That: Bing's No. 2 Ranking In Context
- Search Engine Land, Tuesday, September 14, 2010 12:20 PM
Not surprisingly, Bing's growth has come largely at Yahoo's expense, Nielsen tells Search Engine Land's Greg Sterling. "The other numbers ... argue that it's too early to anoint Bing as the confirmed number two. But that would appear to be its trajectory."
"In terms of a year-over-year comparison ... Yahoo has seen a small but steady decline, going from a 16% share to 13.1% (a delta drop of 2.9% or a relative drop of 18%)," according to Nielsen. "MSN/Windows Live/Bing's share has grown from 10.7% in August 2009 to 13.9% (a delta increase of 3.2% or a relative increase of 30%).
Still, "That contrasts with the July report from comScore, which shows that Bing had an 11 percent share and Yahoo had a 17.1 percent share," points out BoomTown's Kara Swisher.
What's more, Nielsen "says its numbers reflect only queries typed into a search box,"
Indeed, "Nielsen's search data only counts genuine intentional searches that people type into a search box," Nielsen said in a statement. "It does not include non-intended or 'contextual' searches that are automatically generated by search engines based on a person's browsing behavior."
Either way, "Microsoft's share is going to increase even more in the future: The company officially took over running Yahoo's search operations last month, so from now on, Yahoo will no longer exist as a separate search entity," notes GigaOm.
Yet, adds Search Engine Land's Sterling: "If Yahoo does slip to a consensus number three people will inevitably explore the question of whether the Yahoo-Microsoft deal and the loss of many key Yahoo search personnel is to blame or whether Microsoft's huge investment in Bing would have eventually lifted it past Yahoo regardless."
