Bing’s recent marketing initiatives are showing a positive impact on their share of the overall search market. iCrossing’s December 2009 Enterprise Natural Search Share Index shows Bing’s market share grew 1.07% year-over-year. While Bing’s month-over-month shared dropped 0.19%, the year-over-year share increase is the real story here.
The real impact of Bing’s year-over-year growth is seen when comparing their numbers to that of Yahoo. The December 2009 report showed that Yahoo had a slight decline in month-over-month share. However, it showed a significant 2.83% decrease in Yahoo’s year-over-year share of all search traffic. Yahoo’s decrease, combined with the increase for Bing in year-over-year search traffic, seems to indicate that Bing will surge past Yahoo into the number 2 spot for all search traffic by the end of the first quarter 2010.
While this change in the number 2 position is certainly notable, it is also important to acknowledge that Google continues to see increases in its total share of the search market. Google’s November to December share rose 0.78%, while their year-over-year share grew 3.01%. Google’s continued success in capturing and maintaining the search market could push them past the 80% share of market level by the end of first quarter 2010.