The number of Internet Web searches conducted in the United States increased significantly to over 10 billion  during January 2008, with search giant Google extending its leading share of the search market to 58.5 percent, more than the four other top search engine sites combined, according to new figures from Web traffic analysis company comScore announced Thursday. Google Extends Search Lead January saw search volume increases of at least 5 percent for each of the top five search engine firms, accounting for a healthy 10.49 billion U.S. searches, an increase of 8.9 percent from December's total of 9.63 billion total searches, according to Reston, Virginia-based comScore's core search marketplace analysis, which measures the five leading search engines including partner property and cross-channel searches. December search volume had been 4 percent lower than November figures. Mountain View, California-based Google alone accounted for 6.13 billion of these total core searches during January, up 9.1 percent over its December tally of 5.62 billion searches. Google increased its share of the core search marketplace by a slight 0.1 percent during January, up from 58.4 percent in December, according to comScore. Shares of Google stock were down $0.10, or 0.02 percent, to $507.70 during after hours trading Friday. Numbers Fall As Yahoo Remains in Second Spot Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo, presently struggling to fend off an unwanted takeover bid from Microsoft,  continued to hold the number two overall core search ranking during January, with its sites combining to represent 22.2 percent of all searches, a decrease from the 22.9 percent it saw during December. Yahoo saw a 5.5 percent increase in the number of searches performed on its sites during January, 2.33 billion, up from 2.21 billion during December. A SearchEngineWorld chart, shown below, details comScore's January core search engine figures.  Shares of Yahoo stock were unchanged at $28.42 during after hours trading Friday. Microsoft Keeps Number Three Position Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, saw its search sites remaining steadily in the number three position during January, keeping the same 9.8 percent share of the core search market it held during December. Overall January traffic to Microsoft's search sites increased 9.7 percent, representing 1.03 billion searches, up from 940 million during December. Microsoft chairman Bill Gate's said this week that his company will move forward on search initiatives no matter how its acquisition attempt turns out with Yahoo. Shares of Microsoft stock were up $0.01, or 0.04 percent, to $27.69 during after hours trading Friday. Recently Split AOL Stays in Fourth Place January saw Time Warner split its AOL group into two separate properties in an attempt to keep its sagging  Internet access business separate from its Web search and portal offerings. AOL LLC emerged as the search firm, and during the same month comScore figures showed it as holding the fourth position on the overall list, with 4.9 percent of the search market, up 0.3 percent from the 4.6 percent AOL saw during December. AOL saw the greatest rise in total January searches among the top five search engine firms, experiencing a 16.5 percent increase from the 442 million searches comScore recorded for it during December. During January AOL had 514 million total searches. Shares of parent company Time Warner stock were up $0.17, or 1.04 percent, to $16.49 during Friday trading. Ask.com Fifth Most Popular Search Engine During January Ask.com held 4.5 percent of the search market, which made it the fifth most popular search engine, a modest 0.2 percent increase from the 4.3 percent share it held during December. It was second only to AOL in having the biggest increase in total January searches, jumping up 14.6 percent, from 415 million December searches to 475 million last month. Shares of parent company IAC (InterActiveCorp) were up $0.20, or 0.93 percent, to $21.70 during trading Friday. January Web Searches Rise, Led by Google Results from comScore's expanded January search engine analysis measure more than the top five search engine firms, also ranking the top 50 worldwide Web properties that use search, including searches for maps, videos and products for purchase. These expanded results show that of 14.59 billion total searches, Google's collection of sites garnered 7.73 billion, an 8 percent increase from December. Google's YouTube video sharing  site and other Web properties grew 2.6 percent during January, while its core search engine site grew 9.4 percent. Yahoo sites ranked second with 2.45 billion searches, a 3.9 percent increase from December figures. Microsoft sites ranked third with 1.06 billion searches, up 10.1 percent from figures recorded in December. AOL LLC properties accounted for 903 million searches during January. AOL figures from December were not available from comScore. Ask's network of sites ranked fifth in expanded worldwide results, combining to account for 477 million searches, up 14.7 percent from December. Its MyWebSearch.com and other non-primary search properties were up 7.3 percent in January, while the biggest gain of the month belonged to it's primary Ask.com search engine, which climbed 20.2 percent from December figures. eBay occupied the sixth spot of comScore's expanded search list with 467 million searches, an 8.1 percent decrease from December's 508 million recorded searches. Fox Interactive Media's network, including social networking site MySpace, held the seventh position during January with 384 million searches, up 9.6 percent from December's 350 million searches. Strong Annual Search Growth Online classified advertisement community Craigslist.org held the eighth position during January, with 256 million searches, followed by Amazon Web sites with 167 million searches and social networking site Facebook with 109 million. Amazon's figure represents a decrease of 22.2 percent from December, the largest among the top ten search firms in the expanded comScore listing. Over the past twelve months through January, total core searches are up 23 percent according to a recent report by JPMorgan North America Equity Research, which concluded, "We believe January's growth is more in line with historical levels." The January, 2008 search engine report released Thursday by comScore, a top online audience measuring firm along with rival Nielsen Online, showed that even if Microsoft were to successfully acquire Yahoo, the new firm's share of the expanded search marketplace, at 3.51 billion searches, would still trail well behind Google's leading 7.73 billion. Related Links:
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10:51 pm on Feb. 22, 2008 (utc 0)