Google Inc.'s share of the U.S. online search market rose in April while Yahoo Inc.'s share declined, according to estimates released by ComScore Inc. on Thursday.
ComScore's most recent search report concluded that nearly 62 percent of searches performed in the U.S. in April, or 6.5 billion, were conducted on Google sites, compared with about 60 percent, or 6.4 billion, in March.
The report indicated that more than 20 percent of U.S. searches, or 2.2 billion, were conducted on Yahoo Inc. sites, a drop from more than 21 percent, or 2.3 billion, in March.
Searches through Microsoft Corp., Time Warner Inc.'s AOL LLC and IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ask.com all showed slight declines: Microsoft sites captured about 9 percent of searches, or 961 million, in March. AOL had nearly 5 percent, or 491 million, while Ask had more than 4 percent, or 458 million.
The search report is based on the five major search engines, taking into account partner searches and cross-channel searches. It excludes searches for mapping, local directory and user-generated video sites. While these measures are good as a gauge, they do rely heavily on online recruitment techniques dismissed by other more traditional pollsters. ComScore's data is closely watched by analysts and investors, but the company recently took heat for a separate report on paid search clicks, which relies on a similar panel as the data on search market share.
Wall Street's concerns that the faltering U.S. economy could bog down Google resulted largely from investors and analysts reading too much into the data. Google wound up surpassing the analysts' predictions in producing a first-quarter profit increase of 30 percent.
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