• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, July 18, 2007

Despite costly efforts by Yahoo and Microsoft to check Google's search dominance, spending across the major engines has remained flat this year, according to new research from RBC Capital Markets and bid-management technology company SearchIgnite.

Google continues to garner a much larger percentage of media spend than its percentage of searches, and thanks to a recent algorithm tweak, now extracts greater revenue per search than any engine. (Specifically, to reduce spam in its listings, Google made a significant change in June regarding landing page relevancy.)

"Google's second quarter algorithm change continued to propel its leadership in monetizing search for large brand marketers, surpassing Microsoft, who has historically been able to monetize search very well, albeit with fewer eyeballs," explained Roger Barnette, president of SearchIgnite.

In June, Google received 76% of media spend but only 60% of searches across its network. During the same time period, Yahoo earned just 18.3% of media spend while receiving 34% of searches across its network.

Still, the situation could be worse for Yahoo, whose launch of Panama at least managed to stall its fading search market share, according to Barnette.

"Panama has stabilized Yahoo's market share, but so far has failed to give them the gains necessary to take them to the next level," said Barnette.

The RBC/SearchIgnite study tracked some 14 billion impressions and 185 million clicks on Yahoo, Google, and MSN from Jan. 1 of last year through June 30 this year and across more than 500 marketers.