Bing – Bang – Bust.  Bing Opens With A Disappointing First Month

June was supposed to be the month that Microsoft’s new search engine – Bing – was supposed to threaten Yahoo! for market share for 2nd place in search engine popularity.  Bing, for all the buzz, failed in delivering even a moderate threat. 

And here is why.

While Bing came in with a market share of 5.31% it is important to remember that the old search engine ‘Live’ now just forwards to ‘Bing’.  So while the initial traffic seems respectable, when compared with the combined totals of both ‘Live’ and ‘MSN’ in the previous month the real gain was only .59%. 

For all the buzz in the online world, a .59% increase has to qualify as disappointing.

It should be noted however, that some of this increase did come at the hands of Google, who had their worst market share performance since November 2008.

Google Hardly Hit By The Bing Buzz

Search Engine Market Share Comparison June 2009

Google Does Have Worst Market Share Performance Since November 2008

The buzz suggested that Google would be down several percentage points this month simply because of all the online talk about Bing.  That wasn’t the case.  Google did not continue its market share growth but at the same time did not lose out all that much.  Google went from 81.50% in May to 81.22% in June.  The lowest market share they have had since November 2008, but still almost 3% higher than where they were in June 2008.

Yahoo! Search Continues Downward Trend

Many people in the industry were speculating that Bing’s presence in the online world would mean catastrophic effects to market share for Yahoo!  Yes – Yahoo! continued its decline (as it has done every single month this year) but the loss in market share this month was no different than previous months.  Yahoo! went from 9.39% in May 2009 to 9.21% in June 2009.  This is down from 11.78% in June 2008.

Bing Makes an Underwhelming Splash in the Search Engine Sea

The buzz about the release of Bing in June 2001 was significant. Bing managed to get a 5.31% market share.  At first glance this number seems to be fairly decent.  Next – consider that Live is now forwarding to Bing and many of the searches done on MSN are also counting towards the Bing market share.  The result when market share of Microsoft’s search portals is 5.43% in May to 6.02%.  A big deal?  Not really.  The real metric to watch is whether the rise continues as the shine wears off the new search engine.

To learn more about the features we like about Bing make sure to read ‘Bing Arrives With A Bang’.

Market Share Summary – June 2009

#1 Google – 81.22% of market share in June 2009. Down from 81.50% in May 2009 and up from 78.35% in June 2008.
#2 Yahoo! – 9.21% of market share in June 2009. Down from 9.39% in May 2009 and up down from 11.78% in June 2008.
#3 Bing (and Microsoft search portals Live and MSN) – 6.02% of market share in June 2009. Up from 5.43% in May 2009 and up from 4.56% in June 2008.

Market share information provided by Market Share.

Related posts: