Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is sometimes referred to as the King of Online Search. That may be changing if the new data from Experian Hitwise is accurate. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) are both logging some real gains in the share of the U.S. search market.
Google used to be closer to 70% of the online search share in the United States. The drop in share went down to 64.42% for Google in April of 2012, and that is down from 66.69% in March of 2012 and down from 67.82% back in April 2011.
The share of Bing’s search was now 30.01% and that compares to 28.48% in March of 2012 and 26.92% in April 2011. The gains were listed as being both Yahoo! and Bing. Maybe having a CEO with a bogus resume is not a killer after all!
Google has often been accused of being too distracted from its core operations. Google shareholders also now have no control over what the Sergey and Larry team does. With Motorola, solar, and a whole slew of other Google sites and services that everyone has forgotten about, investors may need to ask what happens when the core operation that is Google’s bread and butter comes under fire.
It is hard to know if the sampling has changed or if it is a broader measure of behavior. Experian Hitwise tracks 10 million U.S. internet users for its sample. Google shares are down 0.9% at $608.00; Yahoo! shares are down 1% at $15.28
JON C. OGG
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