Bing gains US search market share for 10th straight month

Microsoft's new Internet search engine Bing increased its share of the US search market in March while market leader Google slipped a bit, online tracking firm comScore said Friday.

Bing's share of the US search market rose to 11.7 percent in March from 11.5 percent in February, the 10th straight month of modest gains, the Web analytics firm said.

Microsoft's search partner Yahoo! saw its share increase to 16.9 percent in March from 16.8 percent in February, comScore said.

Google remained the overwhelming leader of the lucrative US search and advertising market although its market share fell slightly in March, to 65.1 percent from 65.5 percent in February.

Ask.com's share improved to 3.8 percent from 3.7 percent while AOL's was steady at 2.5 percent.

March was the 10th consecutive month of slight gains in search share for Bing, which Microsoft unveiled in June accompanied by a 100-million-dollar advertising campaign in a bid to challenge search juggernaut Google.

Microsoft and Google have been consistently upgrading online search service features in what has thus far been a lopsided duel favoring the Mountain View, California-based Internet king over the software giant.

The competitors have been focused on improving mobile search offerings and incorporating real-time content from popular online communities such as Twitter and Facebook into search results.

Yahoo! and Microsoft unveiled a 10-year Web search and advertising partnership in July that set the stage for a joint offensive against Google.

Under the agreement, Yahoo! will use Microsoft's search engine on its own sites while providing the exclusive global sales force for premium advertisers.