Google, Yahoo Gain Share in U.S. Web Search Market

Google has increased its share of the U.S. Web search market to 47.4% with a gain of 0.4%
during December, while No. 2 ranked Yahoo also edged higher, a survey said Monday.

Web audience measurement firm comScore Networks said third ranked Microsoft's share slid 0.5% to 10.5% of U.S. Web searches while IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ask.com's share dipped 0.1% to 5.4%.

Google has gained share in 16 of the last 17 months in the U.S., the world's largest Internet market, according to comScore data.

Yahoo's share of the market rose 0.3% to 28.5% in December over November, the survey found.

An estimated 6.7 billion searches were conducted by U.S. Web users in December, up 1% from November.

The number of U.S. Web search queries has grown 30% since December of 2005, comScore said. Consumers performed 3.2 billion searches on Google sites, while Yahoo drew 1.9 billion searches.