• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, December 23, 2005

Search giant Google continues to dominate all other search engines and directories sites, according to new data by research company Hitwise.

Of the top 15 search engines and directories, Google's market share last month came to around 42 percent, with an average session time of more than 12 minutes. Google's next closest competitor, Yahoo!, garnered a market share of just 17 percent--although average session time, at more than 11 minutes, was close to Google's. MSN Search came in third, with around 14 percent market share and an average session time of almost seven minutes.

Google Image Search took the fourth spot, with a market share of around 5 percent, while Ask.com came in fifth, with a market share of around 2 percent.

Not only did Google retain the No. 1 position, but its market share within the search and directories category grew by 10 percent from May to November, Hitwise reported.

When Hitwise examined search volume, it found that Google was far and away the market leader, accounting for almost 62 percent of total search volume last month. Yahoo! Search accounted for around 26 percent, while MSN was responsible for about 5 percent of total search volume.