Yahoo-Microsoft partners gain search market share from Google in US

Yahoo Inc. captured share in the critical market for Web search in July at the expense of market leader Google Inc. Microsoft Corp.'s Bing search engine didn't gain any share last month, according to data tracking firm comScore Inc. But Microsoft technology drives Yahoo search, and the gains at Yahoo now mean the Bing-Yahoo duo has taken market share in five of the past seven months this year, half from Google and half from smaller search services.
Yahoo had 16.1% market share in July, according to comScore, up from 15.9% in June. Bing was flat at a 14.4% share. Combined the partners had a 30.5% share of Web searches.Google by comparison saw its share slip to 65.1% from 65.5% in June, comScore reported. For the year so far, Bing has seen its share climb from to 14.4% from 12% in December 2010. Yahoo is up to 16.1% from 16% in December. Because of the difficulty of monitoring mobile search, comScore data don't include the millions of queries made through smartphones and other mobile devices. Various analysts' surveys indicate nine out of 10 mobile searches are conducted through Google, and so far no search rival has mounted a serious mobile challenge.
The gains at Yahoo are notable because its share of search had been static since April. Smaller search rival Ask Network of IAC/Interactive Corp. saw its share hold steady at 2.9% last month, while AOL Inc. saw its share climb one-tenth of a percentage point to 1.5%

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