Bing surpasses Yahoo in search market share

Microsoft's Bing has overtaken Yahoo as the second most popular search engine on the web, according to new figures from research firm StatCounter.

Bing handled 4.37 per cent of the world's search queries last month, while Yahoo logged 3.97 per cent. Both sites were well behind market leader Google with 89.94 per cent of the global search load.

"It is significant that Bing overtook Yahoo globally for the first time on a monthly basis, but it remains a tough battle to claw back Google's market share, " said StatCounter chief executive Aodhan Cullen.

"Although Google dipped below the 90 per cent mark in February worldwide for the first time since August 2009, it shows little sign of losing its global dominance any time soon."

Google's lead was even larger in the UK, where the company claimed a 92.46 per cent share, compared to 3.65 per cent for Bing and 2.45 per cent for Yahoo. Ask Jeeves was fourth with 0.75 per cent, followed by AOL with 0.62 per cent.

Google enjoyed a 94.7 per cent market share across Europe, followed by Bing with two per cent and Yahoo with 1.22 per cent.

Google's share of the market was lower in the US at 79.63 per cent. Yahoo pulled ahead of Bing in the US with 9.74 per cent compared to 9.03 per cent for Bing.

Anti-trust worries stemming from Google's huge market share have been a hot topic of late. The company is said to be in talks with the EU on a deal which could help protect it against further legal action.