Bing Advances Just a Bit in Search Battle

In one of the most sluggish months of the year when it comes to online activity, given the heat and appeal of ocean breezes, Microsoft's 3-month-old search site Bing advanced half a percent in the search engine race in July.

A new monthly report released yesterday from research firm comScore shows that while Americans searched the Web less last month than in June, Bing grabbed a sliver more of the activity in its competition against search engine titan Google.

In July, there were 13.6 billion core searches, with Google taking a 64.7 percent market share and Microsoft Sites accounted for 8.9 percent. Yahoo grabbed 19.3 percent.

In comparison, in June, Google had 65 percent whereas Yahoo Sites took 19.6 percent and Microsoft 8.4 percent. Ask Network and AOL Network stayed steady month to month with 3.9 and 3.1 percent respectively.

According to the analysis, Microsoft Sites are up 3 percent from May, though Facebook is experiencing the highest growth rate in search properties with a 35-percent spike.

That growth isn't going to slow anytime soon given Facebook's recent buy of FriendFeed and last week's news that it's improved it search capabilities big time.

Maybe Google isn't Bing's biggest search competitor after all.

Photo courtesy of Microsoft