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Google widens search lead over rivals 

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On the same day that Google moves ahead again in the search battle (it had almost 62% of the market), billionaire co-founder Larry Page criticised the potential Microsoft tie-up with Yahoo!, saying it would "concentrate too much power in the online communications market". Clearly Page has a real sense of humour.

Google extended its US lead in web search in April, taking market share from Yahoo! and Microsoft, according to the latest ComScore data.

The firm said Google captured a record-high 61.6% of the US market in April, up from 59.8% in March. Does anyone see that going south any time soon? No, it seems that like the irrepressible 80s pop classic "the only way is up" for Larry.

I mean the evidence is all there. For the last two years, Google has continuously gained share and at the expense of rivals.

Furthermore Google, was the only search company to record an increase in the number of searches in April, while Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL network and Ask.com all posted a decline of 5% or more.

Yahoo!'s US search market share fell to 20.4% a 0.9 percentage point decline from March, while Microsoft's slipped to 9.1% from 9.4%. AOL meanwhile dropped 0.2 percentage points to 4.6% and Ask dropped to 4.3% from 4.7%.

All this as Page criticises Microsoft's efforts to cut some kind of a deal with Yahoo!, but look at the numbers: combined in terms of search, the two will only have 29.5%, putting them 32.1% behind Google.

His argument is that a successful Microsoft-Yahoo deal would "close a lot of things that are really important... like instant messaging" and also web-based e-mail communications.

"Now, if you put 90% of communications all in one company ... that's really a big risk, especially one [Microsoft] that has a history of doing bad stuff," he said. "So if you want to have good products, you need to have some degree of openness."

There is certainly truth to that line, with ComScore saying that a combined Microsoft-Yahoo! would have about a 70% of email and instant messaging market share in the US. That seems high, but it is no different to what has happened to the search market and the online ad market.
Published May 23 2008, 11:45 AM by Gordon Macmillan
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Gordon Macmillan

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