Recently, there have been debates within the internet marketing community as to whether Bing is “copying” Google in terms of search results, but no matter what Bing is doing, it's clearly attracting new searchers. The 2010 Digital Year in Review report from comScore indicates that Microsoft searches demonstrated 29 percent year-over-year growth in December.
By comScore's measure, Microsoft is the fastest-growing player in the search market. The company's 29 percent gain in search volume was accompanied by 8 percent growth in overall searchers, as well as 20 percent growth in searches per searcher.
Meanwhile, Google sites showed more modest growth, demonstrating a gain of just 13 percent in search volume year-over-year in December. Nonetheless, the search giant maintains a strong lead in the market. Google fielded more than two-thirds of all queries in 2010. In December, a whopping 69.4 percent of searches were powered by Google, compared to 24.4 percent powered by Bing.
While Google clearly has a strong lead on Microsoft, the comScore data reveals that Bing is on its way to becoming a major player in the search market – and search marketers should take note. Bing's ascent is supported by other search analysts. As Brafton recently reported, Hitwise data shows Bing searches grew 21 percent in January.
