Google Grows U.S. Search Market Share in August

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Google grew its search market share by 0.7 percentage points in September, while its major search rival Yahoo experienced a 0.7 percentage point reduction, according to data from comScore.

Microsoft, meanwhile, grew its share marginally by 0.1 percentage points, meaning its search alliance with Yahoo suffered a total loss of 1.3 percent of market share to Google over the course of the month, accounting for a total of 27.9 percent of U.S. searches. Google accounted for a total of 66.1 percent of U.S. search queries over the same period.

According to comScore, Google's gain in share reflects the introduction of the company's Instant Search feature early last month. The measurement firm says the methodology for its explicit core search data, shown below, defines queries through Instant Search as instances where a user strikes the enter key, clicks on an algorithmic or sponsored result, or clicks on a vertical search tab such as News or Image search. In other words, simply typing in the search bar to reveal a list of search results without interacting with them, is not recorded as a query.