New figures from Experian Hitwise show that the number of searches run through Yahoo and Bing – both of which use Bing’s search technology – increased 6.5% for January.
According to Hitwise, Bing-powered searches took 27.44% of the search market last month, up 6.5% from the same period last year. Yahoo accounted for 14.62%, down from 15.2%, while Bing increased its share to 12.81%.
Google dropped 2%, but still dominates the market with 67.95% of all searches run through its engine.
More controversially, given the recent accusations by Google that Bing was copying its results, Hitwise claims that Bing’s success rate is higher than Google’s.
According to the data, 81% of searches run through Bing result in a user clicking through to visit a site, compared to 65% for Google.
Google’s lower success rate may be in part due to the success of Google Instant, which might be providing answers to many queries without users needing to click through to find what they are looking for.
The new data for the number of successful searches is an opportunity for online marketers to re-evaluate their search engine optimisation strategies to improve click-through rates.
