Microsoft's Bing increases US search share

Microsoft's new search engine Bing posted a slight increase in its share of the US search market in August, the third month in a row of modest gains, according to online tracking firm comScore.

Bing, which the Redmond, Washington-based software giant unveiled in late May, increased its market share to 9.3 percent in August from 8.9 percent in July and 8.4 percent in June, comScore said Tuesday.

Google remained the overwhelming leader of the lucrative US search and advertising market last month with a 64.6 percent market share, a dip of 0.1 percent from July.

The US market share of Yahoo! was unchanged at 19.3 percent in August, comScore said.

Search engine Ask's market share of 3.9 percent in August was also unchanged from July, while AOL secured a 3.0 percent market share in August, down from 3.1 percent the previous month.

Yahoo! and Microsoft, after months of negotiations, unveiled a 10-year Web search and advertising partnership in late July that set the stage for a joint offensive against Google.

Under the agreement, Yahoo! will use Microsoft's search engine on its own sites while Yahoo! will provide the exclusive global sales force for premium advertisers.

The agreement between the Internet portal and software giant, which will be subject to review by US anti-trust regulators, is expected to close in early 2010.

(c) 2009 AFP