Bing-Powered Searches Hit 30 Percent in March

Bing is expanding its reach as a search engine, according to new data from Experian Hitwise. In March, Bing powered nearly a third (30.01 percent) of U.S. searches.

The amount of Bing-powered searches has been steadily increasing. In February, they accounted for 28.48 percent of traffic, meaning the March figures are a 5 percent increase.

However, Google is still top dog as far as search engines go. In captured 64.42 percent of the market, a 3 percent decrease from the previous month. But other sources are gaining on Google. Yahoo nabbed the third spot with 15.69 percent of searches, a 5 percent month-over-month increase, and Bing alone saw a 6 percent increase from February's figures with 14.32 percent of the space. While Hitwise also tracks 69 additional search engines, they only comprised 5.58 percent of U.S. searches in March.

The term Bing-powered search might be a bit confusing. In July 2009, Microsoft signed a 10-year dealwith Yahoo that allows Bing to power Yahoo's search site and Yahoo to handle advertising. Bing has been powering Yahoo search in the U.S. and Canada since August 2010.

Hitwise also monitors search success rates, meaning searches that actually lead you to a Web site. Both the Yahoo and Bing sites had nearly the same rate of success at 81.4 percent and 80.32 percent respectively. Google had a lower success rate of 65.91 percent.

Most searches (24.40 percent) are just one word long, according to Hitwise. In fact, longer searches (those that are five to eight words in length) slipped 3 percent from February to March, while shorter queries (one to four words long) were up 1 percent.

Source : PC Mag