• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 30, 2016

It may not seem like a major achievement, but Microsoft sites inched up another fraction of a percentage to 21.9% market share in July 2016 from 21.8% in June 2016, according to comScore data released Monday.

The numbers for explicit core searches exclude contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.

Microsoft inched up, but Google sites slid to 63.4% in July 2016 from 63.8% in June 2016.

Surprisingly, Yahoo sites also gained slightly -- up to 21.1% in July 2016 from 11.9% in June 2016. Ask Network followed, steady with 1.5% for June and July 2016, and AOL went from 1.0% in June 2016 to 1.1% in July 2016.

The number of search queries in the U.S. for desktop home and work locations fell across the board in July 2016, per comScore, so targeting consumers on these machines will become more difficult. The total number of explicit core searches fell 5% in July to 15,220. Google sites took the biggest hit for the month, declining 5%. AOL is the only engine gained. The company gained 3% from 156 to 161 in July 2016.

Facebook took the no. 1 spot for mobile apps with 78.4% reach in July 2016 for the total U.S. smartphone mobile media users ages 18 and older on iOS and Android platforms, followed by Facebook Messenger with 70.9%. YouTube came in at No. 3 with 61.6%, Google Maps with 57.4% and Google Play with 53%, rounding out the top five.

Google Search with 52.4% came in at No. 6, and Gmail with 45.2 took No. 7.