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Microsoft posts modest search gains with Bing

New search engine Bing helped Microsoft increase its share of the search market in the US last month but it still lagged behind Yahoo and Google, a Web analytics firm reported on Wednesday.

StatCounter said Microsoft carved out an 8.23 percent share of the US search market last month, up from 7.21 percent in April and 7.81 percent in May.

Yahoo’s share of the search market was 11.04 percent last month, up from 10.99 percent in May but down from 11.27 percent in April.

Google continued to dominate the search market with a 78.48 percent share last month, down slightly from 78.72 percent in May and 79.07 percent in April.

“At first sight, a 1 [percentage point] increase in market share does not appear to be a huge return on the investment Microsoft has made in Bing, but the underlying trend appears positive,” StatCounter chief executive officer Aodhan Cullen said.

“Steady if not spectacular might be the best way to describe performance to date,” Cullen said in a statement.

StatCounter said that globally, Microsoft increased its search market share from 3.08 percent in April to 3.30 percent last month.

Yahoo fell from 5.48 percent in April to 5.15 percent last month, while Google remained steady at 89.80 percent.

Microsoft will include updates from Twitter Inc in Bing, the company said on Wednesday in a blog posting.

Bing will initially display Twitter feed entries — or Tweets — from prominent users of the social-networking site.

Users who search for names like former US president Al Gore along with the word Twitter will get Gore’s latest Tweets and a link to see more.

Twitter has grown into the third-biggest US social-networking site. Companies such as Dell Inc and Starbucks Corp also use the service, sending Tweets to customers.
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