Bing is once again the UK’s second favourite search engine after regaining some of June’s lost market, according to Experian Hitwise. Social networking giant Facebook on the other hand saw its share of all social network visits drop to its lowest since October 2009.
The online intelligence service’s latest Search Engine and Social Analysis reports a good month for Microsoft’s search tool, which claimed 3.84 percent of the UK’s internet searches in July.
Last month Bing surrendered second spot to Yahoo but this month it is the only site to have achieved any notable growth and the figures suggest it made much of its 0.96 percent gain from Google, which lost 0.98 percent.
Google, however, remains the search game’s giant, handling 91.04 percent of the UK’s searches. Yahoo is back in third with three percent.
“Microsoft has recovered from last month’s blip to once again become the UK’s second most popular search provider,” said Robin Goad, Research Director of Experian Hitwise.
“The key for Bing now is to hold on to its gains in the search market and build on its strengths which differentiate it from Google and the other engines.”
Facebook’s total share of the UK’s social network visits is now 50.14 percent, down 3.58 percent compared to last month and 4.46 percent compared to last year. YouTube is still a distant second to Facebook with 22.54 percent.
Despite uncertainty over its profitability, YouTube has been enjoying sustained growth, according to Experian Hitwise, especially in the mobile space.
One in every 35 visits to a website by UK Internet users now goes to YouTube and one in 20 YouTube visits is from a mobile device on a home Wi-Fi network. That does not take into account the millions of visits over 3G networks, says Experian’s Goad.
He also said: “Now firmly entrenched as the UK’s third most visited website after Google UK and Facebook, YouTube continues to make advances in the field of online video.”
The search term ‘youtube’ was also the UK’s third most searched term this month. The most popular search term was ‘facebook’, ‘ebay’ was second
Hitwise reported in March last year that Facebook had overtaken Google as the most visited website in the US. Around the same time, comScore said that search queries on Facebook grew from 395 million in January 2010 to 436 million in February 2010 – a growth of 10 percent in a month.
Since then, Facebook has deepened its relationship with Microsoft Bing on social search, further blurring the lines between search and social media. The Bing search engine now shows users which sites and products their Facebook friends like.
Workforce blow. Newly privatised Toshiba has embarked on a 'revitalisation plan' that will entail the…
European Commission opens an official child safety investigation into Facebook and Instagram-owner Meta Platforms
Hundreds of AI and cloud engineers are being offered relocation out of China by Microsoft,…
Workers at unionised Apple store in Maryland vote to authorise first ever strike, after delays…
Elon Musk loses bid to avoid court order to force him to testify in SEC…
Explore how cutting-edge technologies are reshaping decision-making, driving innovation, and propelling businesses into the data-driven…
View Comments
I accidentally searched Bing when I installed the IE9 update - it was set as the default search engine via the IE9 search/address bar.
Could this be a common trend to explain the 0.96% increase in Bing? I guess the next results will prove this if the % drops back to original of 2.86% unless of course Microsoft release IE10?!
It is wrong to say Bing is second favorite, or second most popular. Those are value judgements. It is the second most used. almost certainly due to Microsoft update strategies as indicated.
@Richard & Bing Who
Fail, fanboys. The same logic applies to Google, given that it is set as the default search engine on software distributed by Google and as default on all of the software & PCs sold by vendors who are paid by Google.