Google UK search share slips below 90 percent as Bing grows

Google has seen its share of the UK search market slip below 90 percent as Microsoft's rival Bing service grows.

New data from web tracking firm Experian Hitwise found that the firm's share of search queries in October 2012 dropped by almost 1.5 percent to 89.33 percent, down from 90.74 in September.

This was also down 1.69 percent from 91.02 in October 2011 as rivals Bing, Yahoo and Ask all gained slightly over the period.

Microsoft's Bing service grew the most as it increased market share by 0.72 percent up to 4.71 percent of all searches across the two months. This helped it grow its year-on-year share by 0.86 percent.

Experian said this may be in part due to the launch of Windows 8 which offers Bing as the default search tool for users, although Google is unlikely to be losing much sleep over the issue as yet.

"Online searches for Windows 8 increased by 120 percent throughout October showing the increased online interest for Microsoft's new operating system. As search continues to diversify however, the market is likely to continue to shift and change," it said in a blog post commenting on its findings.

"Clearly, Google still maintains a huge competitive edge over the other search engines in the UK market. There are 18 times more searches conducted on Google Sites than on all the other search engines combined."

Nevertheless any growth for Bing is likely to be welcome news for Microsoft as it continues to inch itself into the market that Google has dominated for so long.