Mountain View, California-based Internet giant Google extended its leading share of the United States search  market during the month of August to 63 percent, nearly doubling the combined shares of the four other top search engine sites with an increase of 1.1 percent over July figures, according to a new report released Thursday by Web traffic analysis firm comScore. Google's rise in search market share during August, its biggest monthly increase in five months, came at the expense of rivals Yahoo and Microsoft which each suffered drops in the number of searches performed using their search engine sites, comScore said. Google Climbs To 63 Percent U.S. Search Market Share Google's 63 percent share of the August search market was 6.5 percent higher than its 2007 August figure of 56.5 percent, according to Reston, Virginia-based comScore's core U.S. search marketplace qSearch analysis, which measures the five leading search engines including partner property and cross-channel searches. The comScore figures do not include searches for video sharing sites such as YouTube, local directory or mapping sites. Sunnyvale, California-based Web pioneer Yahoo remained as the second most used search engine in the U.S. during August with a 19.6 percent share of the search market, a figure down 0.9 percent from its July mark and an even greater 3.7 percent below its August 2007 23.3 share, according to the comScore report. Redmond, Washington-based software maker Microsoft and its collection of sites retained its spot as the third most used search company with an 8.3 percent share of the market, down 0.6 percent over July and 3 percent below its 11.3 percent share in August 2007, comScore noted. On Wednesday Microsoft announced the first improvements to its Live Search site resulting from its July purchase of search engine startup Powerset, an effort to help the world's biggest software maker gain ground on search leader Google. August Total U.S. Search Queries Steady Around 11.7 Billion IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ask.com operated the fourth most used collection of Web search properties during August with 4.8 percent of the search market, an increase of 0.3 percent over July figures according to the comScore report released Thursday. Time Warner's AOL LLC was the fifth most used search engine firm during August with a 4.3  percent share of the market, a modest 0.1 percent increase over July figures, according to comScore. The total number of combined searches performed in the U.S. decreased slightly during August in recording 11.748 billion searches, down from a July total of 11.753. Google's collection of Web sites accounted for 7.398 billion of the August U.S. search total, a 2 percent gain over the 7.273 billion searches the search giant saw during July according to the comScore figures. Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said Wednesday that the company planned to have its proposed search advertising partnership with Yahoo in place by October 11, despite the news Monday that the deal would be investigated by European Union anti-trust regulators. Yahoo Web properties combined to account for an August total of 2.3 billion searches, down 2 percent from July's 2.405 number, while Microsoft properties accounted for 977 million searches, a decrease of 7 percent from July's total of 1.045 billion. AOL gained a modest 1 percent increase in total searches, with comScore recording 504 million searches during August, up from 499 million for the one-time dial-up giant in July. Google Increases Lead On Microsoft And Yahoo As It Remains Top U.S. Search Engine Results from comScore's expanded August search engine analysis measure more than the top five search engine firms, additionally ranking the top 50 global Web properties that U.S. searchers use, including searches for maps, videos and products for purchase. The August chart is shown by below by SearchEngineWorld.  These expanded comScore results show that of 17.271 billion total searches, Google's collection of sites garnered 10.158 billion, a 2 percent increase from July figures. Google's YouTube video sharing site and other Web properties saw share figures rise by 3 percent during August, while its core search engine site was up 2 percent in the expanded comScore report. The largest percentage increase in the expanded report came from Ask.com's MyWebSearch.com and other properties, which saw 215 million search queries during August, a 26 percent increase from the 171 million queries comScore recorded for the properties during July. Facebook meanwhile saw an increase of 8 percent between it's July total of 173 million searches and August's figure of 186 million, according to the comScore report. Fox Interactive Media's social networking site MySpace gained 9 percent with an August total of 585 million searches, up from July's measurement of 539 million. The sharpest drop in comScore's expanded August search query report came from Microsoft's MSN-Windows Live, which dropped 7 percent during the month, from 1.058 billion in July to 988 million in August. Related Links :
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