Google and Yahoo Continue to Grow, MSN Struggles

The latest Nielsen/NetRatings data shows that both Google and Yahoo continue to grow their search audiences at a nice rate, while MSN, AOL and Ask continue to struggle. Of the more than 7 billion searches conducted online in February, Google managed to snag more than half while Yahoo gulped up more than a quarter. MSN, AOL and Ask.com all carried just single digit shares of the market though each did experience growth over the number of searches they ran in February of '06.

Here's how the numbers break down.

Google handled about 3.9 billion searches. That represents 54% percent of searches and a 40% year over year increase.

Yahoo handled about 1.6 billion searches. That represents about 23% of searches and a 28.8% year over year increase.

MSN/Windows Live handled about 542 million searches. That represents about 9% of searches and a 2.5% year over year increase.

AOL handled 388 million searches. That represents about 5.4% of searches and a 5.6% year over year increase.

Ask.com handled 132 million searches. That represents 1.8% of searches and a 1.2% year over year increase.

The numbers aren't really surprising in terms of Google and Yahoo leading the pack, but I was surprised to see Ask.com performing so poorly. While I'm still primarily a Google user, I've been extremely impressed with the progress being made by Ask.com over the past year or two, especially when it comes to specialized search like local search and blog search. That said, it's awfully hard to shift the tide when people have now become so entrenched in using their favorite engines.

The news does not bode well for MSN/Windows Live however. With the amount of time, money and publicity that Microsoft has poured into their algorithmic and paid search technology, they really need to find a way to gather up a larger share of traffic. There's nothing shameful about being number three...but the huge gap between Microsoft and Yahoo is becoming harder and harder to close and the year over year numbers make it fairly clear that Microsoft isn't going to catch up any time soon.