Microsoft’s Bing search grew faster than Google in October

By Tom Warren, on 25th Nov 10 6:52 pm with 6 Comments

Microsoft’s Bing search engine grew by 0.3 percentage points in October, compared to Google’s 0.2 percentage point increase.

The software giant’s “decision engine” now has 11.5% U.S. market share compared to Google’s 66.3% according to data from comScore. Yahoo’s market share dipped by 0.2 percentage points to a total of 16.5% for October. Microsoft also increased its number of search queries in October. Bing’s percentage change increased by 7% in the month of October compared to Google’s 4%.

Microsoft has recently been updating Bing to include a number of new enhancements in recent months. Some of the new Bing enhancements include integration with Facebook, Bing Maps transit directions and constant UI improvements. Microsoft updated its Bing Maps site to introduce mobile HTML5 support and an updated AJAX control. Earlier this month the software giant updated Bing to include much deeper Facebook integration. The Facebook integration allows Bing users to see what their friends have liked straight from search results. Microsoft also announced in late August that Bing is now powering Yahoo! searches in the U.S. and Canada. Bing is expected to transition to a HTML5 powered version in the coming months with animated home pages, smooth transitions and new animations (see video below).

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Guy-C-M-Roberts/584509814 Guy C M Roberts

    Most amusingly the top Bing result for the search “Bing search growth” isBing Search Growth Levels Off (goo.gl/Ai0hA)

    And the google results show articles about bing search growing… :)

    • GP007

      Funny I just did the same exact search in Bing and the top result is different. Not a surprise though sing the DB is always updating in the end.

  • Anonymous

    I can never switch to Bing, Too attached to Google…

    • GP007

      I switched eash, basically from day 1.

  • http://twitter.com/area51research kiriappeee

    Well I’m curious. Bing searches from mobile units also count to this space right? Pretty obvious that Bing would be seeing a growth these days if the answer is yes. That was probably one of the main benefits MS was looking at when developing WP7. Then there’s the verizon network also switching the Android phones to Bing. People are beta testing IE9 too which could lead to some automatic Bing searches.

    What’s more important to look at is how long this lasts. I feel this might easily be a spike. We may see another spike at the end of November. But let’s see how well the trend lasts.

    • Tom W

      Typically it is just that, a spike. But we’ll see :)