Google increases search dominance

Google claimed a 87.34 per cent chunk of the web search market in the UK last month, over 10 per cent more than it had in June 2007. Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com lagged behind with four per cent, 3.72 per cent and 3.12 per cent shares respectively. Figures from web-monitoring firm Hitwise show that Google is also increasing its market share in the US, albeit more slowly, with a share of 69.17 per cent, compared to 63.98 per cent in June 2007. Yahoo has a much bigger chunk of the search market in the US, with a 19.62 per cent share. Hitwise also said that surfers in the UK were now making fewer searches in the shopping, travel and news categories but many more in the social-networking and online video sectors. "Comparing June 2008 to June 2007, the online video and social-networking categories continue to show double digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from Google – 17 per cent and 28 per cent respectively," said Hitwise. www.hitwise.co.uk