Hitwise: Google Search Share Up 10 Percent

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Google accounted for 64 percent of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ended March 31, while Yahoo Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 22, 9 and 3 percent, respectively, according to Hitwise. The remaining 48 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 5 percent of U.S. searches.

Google has steadily gained search share, whereas MSN Search has lost share. A year earlier, Google accounted for 58 percent of searches, whereas MSN Search's share was 13 percent.

"Google's market share of executed searches continues to grow, exceeding 10 percent growth year-over-year," said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise.

Google Search is also becoming an increasing source of traffic to key industries. Search engines, in general, are the primary way web users navigate to key industry categories.

Comparing March 2007 to March 2006, the Travel, News and Media, and Business and Finance categories received more than double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines, Hitwise says.