Google’s U.S. Search Share Rises to 65.3%; Yahoo Declines

October 10, 2011, 8:49 PM EDT

By Brian Womack

(Updates with new search feature in third paragraph.)

Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., the world’s biggest search-engine company, increased its U.S. market share to 65.3 percent in September, up from 64.8 percent in August, as Yahoo! Inc. dropped to less than 16 percent, according to ComScore Inc.

Yahoo remained No. 2, even as its market share fell to 15.5 percent from 16.3 percent, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore said today. Microsoft Corp., No. 3, was unchanged at 14.7 percent.

Google, which gets most of its revenue from search advertising, has introduced new features to help it stay ahead of rivals. In June, the company unveiled Instant Pages, providing quicker connections to links in query results. The change is designed to cut 2 to 5 seconds from the process.

Microsoft and Yahoo have struggled to erode Google’s leadership, even after joining forces in the search market last year. Still, Google faces slowing growth in the advertising industry. Spending on U.S. search ads rose 7 percent in the third quarter, down from 12 percent in the previous three months, according to IgnitionOne Inc., an online marketing firm.

Shares of Google, based in Mountain View, California, rose $22.05 to $537.17 today. Yahoo, located in Sunnyvale, California, climbed 37 cents to $15.84, while Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft advanced 69 cents to $26.94.

Later this week, Google will release its third-quarter results. The company has tried to expand sales by moving into new areas, including mobile-phone advertising and display ads.

“We believe core search is holding up well, and display and mobile continue to deliver outsized growth,” Doug Anmuth, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York, said today in a research note.

--Editors: Nick Turner, Marcus Chan

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