In the continuous battle for search engine supremacy the winner is always being determined by the number of users that are using the search engine. During the early days of search engines, Yahoo! was considered to be the giant in terms of search engines until Google came into the competition. Since its inception, Google has been regarded as the giant in search engine because of the fact that it is being utilized by more than 60 to 70 percent of internet users.
The only question is will Google stay undefeated? Many search engines spawned after Yahoo! and Google. Among them is Microsoft’s MSN search which was recreated and which is now known as Bing.
In the battle for search engine supremacy, Microsoft has taken Google head on and has taken several steps in order to entice users to switch to Google as well as to increase their user’s base using other methods. Microsoft enticed users to defect from Google by funding an extensive ad campaign and during those times, Microsoft was still in third place in terms of search engine users. Microsoft then entered into a deal with Yahoo! which merged the user’s base of both search engines. These efforts though increased the user’s share of Bing, it did not even measure up to the 60 percent user’s base of Google.
Even with the constant algorithm changes from Google, the search engine giant remains to be on top, according to the recent survey from comScore, Google has about 66.4 percent internet users share. This is an increase from last years 66.2 percent. As for Microsoft’s Bing it took 15.3 percent and Yahoo! taking 13.8 percent making the combined Microsoft-Yahoo internet users share to 29.1 percent, which is lower than what Google has achieved. Even after being marred by numerous negative issues or comments from Google’s privacy policy shift, the company still manages to give internet users the quality of search results that the clients deserve.
Google's popularity is dropping a little by little. But as Google dipped ever so slightly, Yahoo! and Bing picked up its losses. The promising news for Bing is its year-over-year growth in market share. One of the reasons why Yahoo! and Bing may be gaining on Google is that users are apparently achieving more success out of Bing-powered search: 81.14 percent of Yahoo! Search users and 80.32 percent of Bing users clicked on a search result and visited a website. Google, on the other hand, only achieves a 65.91 percent success rate.
Microsoft has been spending loads of cash to prop up Bing and expand its search engine market share. It has a formidable opponent in Google, which still rules the search market. Since Yahoo! Search is now powered by Bing and AOL and Ask have only tiny market shares, Google is Microsoft’s only major competitor.
However, Google is still far ahead of the pack. It tries to pick up its losses and continues to grow. And as search features are being added all over the place, Google is not going to give up its throne so easily. Google's supremacy in search engine competition made it the most targeted search engine for SEO companies and consultants all around the globe.