Google widens lead over Bing, Yahoo!

Experian Hitwise on Tuesday reported that Bing and Yahoo! online
search engines lost ground in the United States in September while
Google inched ahead slightly.    Google handled 71.08 per cent of all
US Internet searches in the four weeks ending October 3, while
Yahoo! and Bing accounted for 16.38 per cent and 8.96 per cent
respectively, according to Hitwise.    Ask.com was the biggest
winner, with its share of US searches climbing 8 per cent to 2.56
per cent in September as compared with August.    Microsoft's Bing
saw its share of the US online search market dip 5 per cent in the
month-to-month comparison, while the number of searches at Yahoo!
was down 3 per cent, Hitwise reported.    Google last week rolled out
search engine refinements as Microsoft continues an aggressive
campaign to lure people to Bing.    The Internet giant's
modifications include tools that let people limit online searches to
only serve up results from the past hour, or by specific date
ranges.    Google users can choose to be shown search only results
from blogs, news, or Web pages that they have visited or those they
haven't visited.    The Bing search engine Microsoft launched in May
was designed to intuitively understand what people are seeking on
the Internet and challenge online king Google.    The US software
colossus described Bing as a 'Decision Engine' aimed at online
shoppers trying to make buying decisions, plan trips, research health
matters or find local businesses.    Bing posted a slight increase in
its share of the US search market in August, a third month in a row
of modest gains, according to online tracking firm comScore.
Yahoo! and Microsoft, after months of negotiations, unveiled a 10-year
Web search and advertising partnership in late 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
Yahoo! will provide the exclusive global sales force for premium
advertisers.    Microsoft is integrating messages from prominent
users of wildly popular micro-blogging service Twitter into results
generated by Bing.