• Mashable, Tuesday, April 12, 2011 12:17 PM

Stateside, Bing-powered search captured 30.01% of the market in March -- up from 28.8% in February -- according to Hitwise. During the same period, Google's search share dropped from 66.69% to 64.42%. The news has industry watches thinking big, and predicting an-until-recently-unthinkable upset. Under the headline, "Could Bing Overtake Google in 2012?" Mashable writes: "If the trend line continues, there will be a real contest between Bing and Google next year -- and Bing may just come out on top."

"Bing is doing what no one used to think was possible: knocking search market share points off of Google, and collecting them," The Next Web writes. "While Bing certainly has no secret weapon in its quiver, the search engine has been bettering itself through a hundred minor improvements, which are perhaps now beginning to add up."

According to Business Insider, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer boasted about the 30% combined market share last month, but the Hitwise report is the first independent confirmation. "The 30% landmark is symbolic because that's approximately where Yahoo's search market share was when Microsoft first launched its own search engine in early 2005," Business Insider writes. "Google still clearly leads Bing more than 2 to 1," Mashable adds. "But when you consider that the ratio was 3 to 1 last fall, the gap appears to be closing. Bing is growing by five or six percent each month, whereas Google is losing two to three percent."  "Bing is nibbling away at Google," The Next Web adds. "Can Google stem the bloodletting?"

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