Microsoft’s Bing overtook Yahoo! as the number two search engine in the United States and worldwide on Thursday (4th June) according to our StatCounter Global Stats data. Bing grabbed market share from Google.
“It remains to be seen if Bing falls away after the initial novelty and promotion but at first sight it looks like Microsoft is on to a winner,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “Steve Ballmer is quoted as saying that he wanted Microsoft to become the second biggest search engine within five years. Following the breakdown in talks to acquire Yahoo! at a cost of $40bn it looks as if he may have just achieved that with Bing much sooner and a lot cheaper than anticipated.”
Our analysis finds that in the US Bing leapfrogged Yahoo to take second place on 16.28%. Yahoo! has 10.22%. Google still commands the US search engine market with 71.47%.
Globally Bing at 5.62% has taken a narrow lead over Yahoo! (5.13%). Google worldwide retains 87.62% of the market.
StatCounter Global Stats, a free online service which captures market share battles of search engines, browsers and operating systems including mobile, was launched in March this year.
The StatCounter Global Stats research data is based on four billion pageloads per month. Other regional and country breakdowns can be viewed at: http://gs.statcounter.com
Full press release available here.
UPDATE 11 June 2009:
While Bing has fallen back to third place behind Google and Yahoo! it is winning market share for Microsoft against its two main rivals in the US and worldwide according to our latest analysis.
We analyzed search engine market share two weeks before and after the formal launch of Bing on May 28th (14th May to the 27th May and the 28th May to 10th June). For the US market it found:
Google decreased from 78.68% to 77.94% (-0.74%)
Yahoo decreased from 11.46% to 10.76% (-0.7%)
Microsoft (Bing, MSN Search and Live Search) increased from 7.4% to 9% (+1.6%)
(See here and here)
“It is too early to say what the long term result will be but this is a creditable performance by Bing,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO StatCounter. “It remains to be seen what happens to Bing after user curiosity and the reported $100m advertising budget runs out.”
Worldwide, comparing the two weeks before and after the Bing launch, StatCounter reports a similar trend with Microsoft taking market share.
Google decreased from 89.81% to 89.69% (-0.12%)
Yahoo decreased from 5.34% to 5.1% (-0.24%)
Microsoft (Bing, MSN Search and Live Search) increased from 3.08% to 3.5% (+0.42%)
(See here and here)
Full press release available here.
Hmm, it’s going to take a lot for me to not use Google as my main search engine. It’s the best out there for finding relevant information. I doubt Bing will ever out compete them. I guess we’ll see.
Thanks for the info though!
wow, i never thought it would be so fast. Yahoo actually has been showing a lot of spammy sites for search results. I am tired of using Yahoo. Google will still be my leading search engine, but i definitely will give Bing a try.
I don’t think Bing will be popular in Europe. Some of the stuff it’s capable of is only for US.
Give it time they’re trying to give us a new kind of search engine
I am not impressed with Bling .. ooops sorry …. meant to say Bing ! …. the Search Results are poor compared to Google. I never used Yahoo anyway so can’t compare against that.
I don’t know that any search engine will ever overtake Google, but Microsoft did do a good maneuver with Bing as they didn’t buy Yahoo. So far we’ve noticed that Bing is drawing in better sales than we were getting on the MSN networks – for pay per click sales.
Yes, I see now that I am getting more and more visitors from Bing, in fact the numbers that I get from Bing are almost the same that I get from Yahoo.
Of course Google is far ahead of BOTH of them by a LOOOONG way.
Do you think its down to the marketing and hype or just the quality of results it attains. Not too impressed myself much prefer Yahoo, still its early days.
great news.. thanks
I’ve been following Bing pretty closely. STATCOUNTER has pulled together some good information on how Bing’s been doing so far – it’s been interesting to watch. I do wonder if it’s just a fad, or if they will be able to continually move in on Google’s market share.
I don’t know that any search engine will ever overtake Google, but Microsoft did do a good maneuver with Bing as they didn’t buy Yahoo. So far we’ve noticed that Bing is drawing in better sales than we were getting on the MSN networks – for pay per click sales.
I also wonder what types of algorithms Bing uses for organic listings. They do appear to use something quite different than Google does. One thing is for sure – there will always be dynamic changes in the world of search engines.
Hmm – I seem to come up pretty well on it for some keywords, but far less so for others.
I wonder if they’ve got a site map submissions page…
The whole world of search engines and keyword research is fascinating to me, and I spend hours in it (I must like research obviously with a PhD degree), but for some reason I feel as though I will continue to use Google mostly, and I think most people will do the same. Will the hard facts of stats prove me wrong?
It remains to be seen whether the inertia of internet surfers’ habit (which is to use Google mostly) will be stronger than the force of innovation
I was not surprised to see it fall back down but I am surprised people are expecting this to stay. Do you not know how much money microsoft is pouring into BING advertising right now? An unsustainable amount. Once they cut back the advertising, the share will fall once again. For the money they are putting into this, they should have retaken 2nd place weeks ago.
It looks like many people are testing this new search engine. If they like it, they might stick to it. Nothing lasts forever on Internet and it will be interesting to see if Bing keeps its share after its first weeks.
I think Bing is doing great..lets see if he can beat Google..i don’t think so but he have the chances..
I think Bing will take some getting used to. Once you’re addicted to Google it’s hard to surf elsewhere. Google still seems to be the market leader in peoples eyes but it appears the data no longer supports this idea.
I see that Bing has beaten both google and yahoo by a wide margin on my website according to statcounter and msn and live have disappeared. The quality of traffic remains the same, just don’t seem to be as many hits from google or yahoo.
How can I tell if Bing is “seeing” all of my site? I don’t see where to let them know I am here. I am getting some hits from them, but not on my top pages.