Earlier today Nielsen Online (pdf) released the latest search share rankings. Figures are pretty much what one would expect, Google far in the lead followed by Yahoo and MSN, but this past month Google has taken another small hit.
April and May of 2009 each saw Google lose a bit of ground. Back in March their search share was 64.2%, and in April it was down to 64%. May has seen another drop, bringing them down to 63.2%, a full percentage point in 2 months. In these same two months, Yahoo has increased a total of 1.4% to 17.2.
It’s no question that Google has a very strong hold on the market, and that’s not going to change any time soon, and I certainly do not expect to see Yahoo spring way in front, but with the recent success and initial increases Microsoft’s new Bing has brought, I would not be surprised to see Google drop a bit more once the month of June has completed. In the past 2 months MS has dropped 0.9%, but I suspect they will recoup this and then some of this.