Search marketers have been abuzz with the news of the recent Yahoo-to-Bing transition, which Brafton reported last month. Based on July comScore data, some speculated that the two search engines would account for a combined 32.7 percent of the search market, but the August search rankings just released from Hitwise reveal that Bing and Yahoo may still be no match for Google.
To be fair, Hitwise has always estimated that Bing and Yahoo each accounted for less of the search market than comScore suggested. While comScore said Yahoo sites accounted for 20.1 percent of core searches in July 2010, Hitwise reports it represented just 14.43 percent of searches. Similarly, comScore data says Bing accounted for 12.6 percent of searches, while Hitwise estimated the Microsoft's search portal accounted for just 9.86 percent of searches in July.
According to Hitwise, neither Yahoo nor Bing gained or lost significant search ground in the four-week period ending August 28. Separately, the sites accounted for 14.28 percent and 9.87 percent of the search market, respectively. During the week of the Yahoo-to-Bing transition, it seems Bing made very slight gains, rising to to 10.24 percent of searches, whil Yahoo powered by Bing represented 14.32 percent of searches in the one-week ending August 28. Thus, Bing combined powered search accounted for 24.56 percent of the search market.
Meanwhile, Hitwise says Google slightly increased its market share in August by Hitwise's measure. The search giant accounted for 71.59 percent of U.S. queries last month.
Marketers may be pleased that their search engine optimization campaigns can now be tailored to two search engines instead of three, but it seems – for the time being – Google is still the place to focus energies and budgets. As Brafton reported yesterday, AdAge revealed this week that more than 1,350 advertisers spent between $1,000 and $100,000 on Google campaigns in June.
