MSN bolsters online search share

by Rich Sutcliffe, mediaweek.co.uk 06-Jan-09, 15:45

LONDON - MSN has bolstered its market share in the UK online search sector, increasing its total queries by 56% year on year, according to figures released by Nielsen.

It added a percentage point to its UK market share in November 2008, compared with November 2007, to take its total to 4%.

The Microsoft search engine was still dwarfed by Google, however, which increased its overall share of search from 80% to 81% for the same period, and still dominates the market.

Marie Thirlwall, senior product manager at Microsoft Live Search, said cross network prevalence, quality marketing and improvements made to the product have all helped to push MSN onwards.

"There has been momentous change in the product in the passed 12 months in terms of relevance. The guts of the search engine have dramatically improved," she said.

Yahoo Search, previously an acquisition target for Microsoft, added 24% to its total number of queries to maintain second place in the UK market with a 6% share.

Of the top five search engines, only AOL Search's total queries decreased year on year, losing 6% and resulting in a fall in market share to 3%.

The figure was still enough to keep it above Ask.com Search, which added 4% to its total UK search figures but still lost market share, falling back to 2% for November 2008, from 3% in November 2007.