Google Continues To Grow, Builds Market Share For 9th Month Running

by Shankar Gupta, May 23, 2006, 6:30 AM

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Google again gained market share this month against all major competitors, according to data released Monday by Comscore, marking the ninth consecutive month that the search giant has increased its already substantial share of the search market.

According to the Comscore numbers, Google's market share in the search space has increased to 43.1 percent in April--up from 42.7 percent in March--while competitor Yahoo remained steady at 28 percent, and MSN fell from 13.2 percent to 12.9 percent during the same period.

The year-over-year picture is just as rosy for the Mountain View search giant. Its overall search share is up 6.6 percent from April 2005 to April 2006, while Yahoo fell 2.7 percent over the same period, and MSN fell 3.2 percent.

According to search expert Gary Stein, Google's continuous gain of market share shows that although the search battle between Yahoo, MSN, and Google is a key topic of discussion in the media, Yahoo and MSN are having trouble measuring up to the hype--so much so that Yahoo may be positioning itself away from the search space. "It's more than just a trend--it's getting away from them," he said. "It's probably pretty clear in [Yahoo CEO] Terry Semel's mind--that's why he talks about social media every chance he gets."

While Yahoo may be positioning itself more as a portal, Microsoft doesn't necessarily have that luxury, Stein said, as it has been explicitly positioning itself as a competitor. "I think Microsoft is absolutely pushing itself as a direct competitor to Google, and when they talk about search, I think they want it to be a zero-sum game," he said. "They want to see points taken away from Google and put into Microsoft, and that just isn't happening."

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