Microsoft’s UK version of Bing has been named as the fastest growing search engine during March.
Experian Hitwises’s UK search engine and social analysis report names Bing UK as the top search engine for March. Google lost 0.66% market share of searches in March, whilst Microsoft’s share increased by 0.28%. The figures year-on-year between March 2010 and March 2011 show that Bing was the only search engine to increase its volume of searches from UK Internet users.
“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 Experian Hitwise‘s Research Director, Robin Goad. “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.”
The statistics from UK search follow recent gains in the U.S. market. Experian reported earlier this week that Microsoft’s U.S. Bing-powered searches now account for over 30% market share. Microsoft’s Bing search has increased its share consistently over the past few months. Bing grew faster in October than Google and Bing continued to rise in December. Bing reached an all time high of 11.8% market share in November but has improved upon the figure in December and January. Microsoft’s Bing search volume increased by 29% during 2010 according to comScore. ComScore says the US search market rose by 12% last year.
WinRumors unveiled the existence of Microsoft’s HTML5 Bing preview. The software giant plans to launch its new Bing preview later today. Bing’s HTML5 will include smooth animations to allow users to jump backwards in their search history. Bing will also introduce small, hovering windows as you scroll down the screen to keep navigation tabs in view. Bing will also enable animated pictures and automatically generated slideshows so users can visually explore a search query. Bing will also introduce an “instant” search similar to rival Google. The instant search will allow page elements to automatically transition as the user types their search query into the bing box.