• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, February 9, 2012

comScore reported that explicit search queries for January rose 5% to 17.8 billion, excluding slide show, contextual, and instant searches. No surprise that Google continues to dominate market share with 66.2% in January -- up from 65.9%, sequentially -- but marketers might find it surprising that the question-and-answer site Ask.com continues to gain market share, and the rate of overall mobile click share continues to grow.

Ask's search queries rose to 3.0% in January,  up from 2.9% for both November and December 2011, although the company slid from 3.5% in December 2010. In its earnings statement, parent company InterActiveCorp reported that search revenue rose 35% in the latest quarter, accounting for more than half of the company's revenue. This includes revenue from ads at Ask.com.

Although there are five primary search engines today, comScore makes the point that the market increasingly relies on the search algorithms of Google and Bing. Will mobile also rely on these search engines -- and how will it influence mobile search? 

Google -- which also powers searches on AOL and Ask -- owned 68.1% market share in December, while Bing, which also powers searches on Yahoo, took 26.5% market share, according to a comScore report released Thursday called U.S. Digital Future In Focus 2012. The report also points to the increasing integration of social search technology as a factor for growth, such as including results from Facebook, Twitter and Google+ in search results.

Bing's share rose from 15.1% in December 2011 to 15.2% in January 2012, but market share for the combined alliance with Yahoo slid from 29.6% in December to 29.3% last month, marking the second quarter of share decline.

The January 2012 search stats do not reflect mobile, but earlier this week comScore and Perfomics held a webinar on mobile devices and search.

Performics Group Account Director Jeff Licciardi said that across the board, 49% of mobile searchers have made a purchase on the phone. About 60% of users call the business, and 59% visit the location.

Mobile paid-search impressions continue to rise. In January, mobile paid-search impressions reached 16%, of which 40% came from tablets. The company predicts mobile will make up 20% of all paid search impressions by the summer. Mobile click share will reach 28% in the same time frame.