Bing claws back ground on Google, report finds
Microsoft’s search engine Bing was found to be the fastest growing search engine in the UK following a recent report carried out by Experian Hitwise.
The UK Search Engine and Social Analysis report found that while Google was still the dominant search engine, accounting for 90% of all search conducted by users within the UK, Microsoft sites had increased its market share by 0.28% between February and March. During the same time frame, Google sites lost 0.66% of their market share of searches, the report found.
The growth of Microsoft sites, led by Bing, grew year-on-year from 2.96% of searches made in 2010 to 4.39% share – an improvement of 1.43%.
"Microsoft is starting to make inroads into Google's massive share of the search market, although Google remains the clear leader in absolute volume terms," commented Robin Goad, research director for Experian Hitwise "It is vital that brands closely monitor the changing trends in the search market, as search typically accounts for between 40-50% of a website's inbound traffic."
Meanwhile, Yahoo ranked third in the list of popular online search sites, but saw a decline of 0.52% from 2010, while Ask came fourth, despite a decline of 0.21%.
Experian Hitwise also found that while Facebook was still the dominant social media platform, account for 56% of social network visits, YouTube, owned by Google, was the fastest growing in March, accounting for 19.6% of social media visits during that month in the UK, rising from 18.32%.
Twitter grew by 0.53% during the same period, ranking it as the third most popular social media site.