Google Increases Dominance of Searches

Google accounted for more than 71% of all online searches within the U.S. during the four weeks ended Aug. 28. Yahoo! Search (18%); MSN Search (5%); and Ask.com (3%) trailed leader Google, with 46 other sites in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool dividing the rest of the online queries between them.

Google increased the percentage of searches it accounted for slightly over July’s level, and significantly improved over the 64% it racked up in August 2007. Much of this gain has come at the expense of Yahoo, which held nearly 23% of the search market a year ago, and MSN Search, which made up just under 7% of all searches.

Throughout all search engines, the entertainment, business and finance, sports, online video and social networking categories showed the largest gains, in terms of the amount of traffic coming from search engines.