Google ups share of Web search

Google increased its share of the US online search market in April while Yahoo! and Microsoft both lost ground, according to figures released on Monday by tracking firm comScore.

ComScore said that 64.2 percent of the searches conducted by Americans in April were at Google sites, up from 63.7 percent in March.

Yahoo!'s share of the search market slipped 0.1 percentage points in April to 20.4 percent while Microsoft saw its share fall by 0.1 percentage points to 8.2 percent.

Search engine Ask held steady at 3.8 percent while AOL saw its market share fall by 0.3 percentage points to 3.4 percent, comScore said.

The tracking firm said Americans conducted 14.8 billion searches in April, up three percent over March, with Google accounting for 9.5 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! with three billion and Microsoft with 1.2 billion.

(c) 2009 AFP