Bing Overtakes Yahoo
June 7, 2009 by Rico Mossesgeld
Filed under Services, Trends
Since StatCounter started tracking Microsoft Bing’s online presence last June 1, the search engine has grabbed a market share of 5.56%—about 0.39% higher than Yahoo as of June 4.
Courtesy of StatCounter
No doubt, Microsoft’s marketing push has helped. I’m sure Bing has benefited from the relative success of Windows 7 to grab the attention of the more tech-minded, while more casual users probably try Bing out of curiosity.
It remains to be seen if Bing will maintain its momentum. Google after all retains its stranglehold on search at 87.66%. Yet it’s actually lost almost two percent market share over the June 1 – June 4 period (Yahoo lost “only” 0.14%, ending up at 5.17%). If StatCounter is an accurate tracker of US online search habits (the figures cited here only cover that country), and if Bing can manage to sustain its growth over the next few months, Microsoft will definitely have a winner here.
Yahoo, on the other hand, ends up losing face again. A search pioneer drops to third to a relative newcomer.
Why is there so much emotion (positive and negative) when a news story focuses on Microsoft? Let’s stick with the facts and how they might or might not impact us. In what ways is Bing better or worse than Google or Yahoo? How will (or should) Bing’s introduction affect marketers? Here are my newest thoughts on Bing, Yahoo!, and Google.