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The impossible has happened: Bing has become relevant

Published Apr 16th, 2015 9:30PM EDT
Bing Vs. Google Vs. Yahoo Market Share

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For a long time, it looked like Bing would just go down in history as a failed attempt by Microsoft to compete with Google. But recently something strange has happened: Instead of continuing down the road to Zunedom, Bing has actually started to become relevant and it now has a respectable U.S. search market share of over 20%. No, seriously!

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Search Engine Land points us to the latest numbers from comScore that show Microsoft sites had a 20.1% share of all desktop searches last month, up from the 18.6% share they had last year. And that’s not all — when you consider that Yahoo sites are powered by Bing, you realize that Bing last month powered more than 30% of all searches performed on desktop computers in the U.S.

While Bing still may not be a household name as Google is, it’s actually become a widely used tool for many PC users, even if they don’t realize they’re using it. Google is still the search industry’s powerhouse, of course, but its share of the desktop search market has fallen from 67.5% in March 2014 to 64.4% in March 2015.

Now that Microsoft has actually made Bing relevant, we wonder if it can pull off the ultimate feat of making Windows Phone popular.

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.