The business website TradingPlatforms.com has been analyzing data in the U.S. search engine space for a decade. The current trends suggest that Microsoft sites have increased their market share by 76 percent over this period. In addition, Microsoft has witnessed market grow from 15.2 percent in January 2012 to 26.8 percent in January 2022.
It is difficult to grow without there being a loser within a free-market economy. The biggest loser from Microsoft Sites’ surge appears to be the Google Search Engine. Although its market dominance remains largely unchallenged, Google has continued to lose ground.
The Google search engine held 61.4 percent of the market share in January 2022. Whilst dominant, this represents a 7.25 percent plunge from its 66.2 percent holding at the same time ten years ago.
What’s spurring Microsoft Sites’ growth?
Microsoft appears to owe its rapid growth to many users believing it offers better results and more relevant information than Google, according to the TradingPlatforms.com information.
For example, Microsoft provides users with eight autocomplete suggestions while Google only does four of them.
Weighing in on the data TradingPlatforms.com’s Edith Reads tells Digital Journal: “Consumers are getting increasingly frustrated with how Google handles their data and its invasive ads targeting.”
She adds: “In response, they’ve turned to sites like Bing as alternatives since they offer similar services but don’t track them as closely or bombard them with ads.”
Better image and video searches.”
Other users hold that Microsoft Bing has the edge over Google because of its better image search. In addition, Bing’s image filtering feature gives users more comprehensive image search options.
The same situation reportedly obtains in the Bing video search option. Instead of tiny thumbnails, Microsoft’s search engine gives you larger ones. Plus, users can play videos without having to open a different tab. Moreover, hovering over videos allows the Internet user to preview them.
Beyond Google and Microsoft, there are several other small players apart from the big two. The most significant of these is Verizon Media that accounts for a market share of 11.4 percent.
Others, once equally dominant, show no signs for recovery. For instance, the Ask Network holds a paltry 0.7% market share.
