USA Today
Google's grip on the Internet search market has loosened just a tad.
The company's share of U.S. searches slipped to 64.4% percent in April, down from 65.1% in March, according to comScore. Meanwhile, Yahoo's share rose to 17.7%, up from 16.9%, while Microsoft Bing crept to 11.8%, up from 11.7%.
Those results are anything but trivial in the current competitive landscape, search experts say. Microsoft and Yahoo are working furiously behind closed doors to blend their search services. The roll out of what analysts have taken to referring to as BingHoo is expected sometime later this year. If the launch of BingHoo came today, it would command a 30% market share.
"Change is imminent for search engines catalyzed by Microsoft's launch of Bing and the push for a better way to deliver more user-centric search results," says Forrester analyst Shar VanBoskirk.
Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to do everything it can think of to keep Bing's momentum going. The software giant on Thursday launched a streamlined MSN Mobile homepage, featuring one-click access to Bing and compatibility with Apple iPhones and Google Android smartphones. Just two months ago, the company redesigned MSN's Internet homepage, also emphasizing deep integration with Bing.
Barry Schwartz, founder and administrator of searchengineroundtable.com, notes that Google, too, has been hustling. "Google has released some pretty cool stuff both on the normal browser search and especially mobile search," says Schwartz. "Just look at Android. And is there anything more innovative today than Google Goggles?"
Still, Google's major redesign of its search results pages, which the company rolled out last week, has gotten a decidedly mixed response. "A lot of people are off-put by the fact that the design changed," says Tom Demers, marketing director at search software firm WordStream. "The tweak in and of itself definitely isn't a game-changer."
Kevin Lee, CEO of search consultancy Didit.com says he expects Microsoft to continue showcasing Bing in its other products. "I think Bing will probably do some interesting integrations between Bing and Hotmail, Windows Messenger and Xbox Live," says Lee. "They need to leverage their areas of strength and turn those areas of strength into adoption."
Vanessa Fox, author of Seattle-based author of Marketing In The Age Of Google, looks for Google and Microsoft to slug it out to see who can do a more effective job anticipating what the person typing the query is truly seeking. Fox notes that 45% of the search queries we type are just one or two words. This makes it difficult for the search services to discern the searcher's intent, she says.
Google resolves this by correlating these queries with millions of others using the same term. So if you type "cats" you might get results for cat videos, if that's what most other people who typed "cats" were looking for, she says.
Bing, on the other hand, uses more of a browsing model. Type "cats" and it will offer you choices of categories of cat topics and try to guide you to what you were looking for. This works especially well for topics involving travel, shopping and health. "I think both engines are continuing to evolve to more of a model that takes into account searcher behavior and searcher intent and the key will be balancing privacy concerns," she says.
Demers credits Google's co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin for keeping the best poker faces in the tech industry. He says it's difficult to tell just how irked they are getting, if at all, by Bing's steady, incremental advances. "Google has gotten very good at developing a game plan and not overreacting to the constant barrage of Google Killers," says Demers. "I don't think you'll see a major sea change on Google's part just yet. You're more likely to see them continue to leverage acquisitions to strategically build out destinations to send their search traffic to."
Those results are anything but trivial in the current competitive landscape, search experts say. Microsoft and Yahoo are working furiously behind closed doors to blend their search services. The roll out of what analysts have taken to referring to as BingHoo is expected sometime later this year. If the launch of BingHoo came today, it would command a 30% market share.
"Change is imminent for search engines catalyzed by Microsoft's launch of Bing and the push for a better way to deliver more user-centric search results," says Forrester analyst Shar VanBoskirk.
Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to do everything it can think of to keep Bing's momentum going. The software giant on Thursday launched a streamlined MSN Mobile homepage, featuring one-click access to Bing and compatibility with Apple iPhones and Google Android smartphones. Just two months ago, the company redesigned MSN's Internet homepage, also emphasizing deep integration with Bing.
Barry Schwartz, founder and administrator of searchengineroundtable.com, notes that Google, too, has been hustling. "Google has released some pretty cool stuff both on the normal browser search and especially mobile search," says Schwartz. "Just look at Android. And is there anything more innovative today than Google Goggles?"
Still, Google's major redesign of its search results pages, which the company rolled out last week, has gotten a decidedly mixed response. "A lot of people are off-put by the fact that the design changed," says Tom Demers, marketing director at search software firm WordStream. "The tweak in and of itself definitely isn't a game-changer."
Kevin Lee, CEO of search consultancy Didit.com says he expects Microsoft to continue showcasing Bing in its other products. "I think Bing will probably do some interesting integrations between Bing and Hotmail, Windows Messenger and Xbox Live," says Lee. "They need to leverage their areas of strength and turn those areas of strength into adoption."
Vanessa Fox, author of Seattle-based author of Marketing In The Age Of Google, looks for Google and Microsoft to slug it out to see who can do a more effective job anticipating what the person typing the query is truly seeking. Fox notes that 45% of the search queries we type are just one or two words. This makes it difficult for the search services to discern the searcher's intent, she says.
Google resolves this by correlating these queries with millions of others using the same term. So if you type "cats" you might get results for cat videos, if that's what most other people who typed "cats" were looking for, she says.
Bing, on the other hand, uses more of a browsing model. Type "cats" and it will offer you choices of categories of cat topics and try to guide you to what you were looking for. This works especially well for topics involving travel, shopping and health. "I think both engines are continuing to evolve to more of a model that takes into account searcher behavior and searcher intent and the key will be balancing privacy concerns," she says.
Demers credits Google's co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin for keeping the best poker faces in the tech industry. He says it's difficult to tell just how irked they are getting, if at all, by Bing's steady, incremental advances. "Google has gotten very good at developing a game plan and not overreacting to the constant barrage of Google Killers," says Demers. "I don't think you'll see a major sea change on Google's part just yet. You're more likely to see them continue to leverage acquisitions to strategically build out destinations to send their search traffic to."
