Hitwise: Microsoft Bing grew 25% per week in June

In the first full month since Microsoft launched its new search engine, Bing, the number of Web searches people did there increased an average of 25 percent each week. But Bing’s market share dropped 7 percent from May to June.

Wait. What?

Bing

It’s true. According to numbers Hitwise released Thursday, Microsoft’s search engine – first Live Search and then Bing after the June 3 launch – fielded 5.64 percent of Web searches in May and 5.25 percent of them in June.

But within June, Bing’s market share jumped up an average of 25 percent per week. Here’s a nice chart:

Hitwise

You’ll notice Bing’s share steadily increased. But Danny Sullivan, search-engine guru and editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, wonders whether that is sustainable.

The question is, will Bing maintain that type of share through an entire month? We’ll know when July figures come out. The bigger question is whether Bing will maintain that type of share when Microsoft’s ad spending ramps down.

Hitwise also put out the May-to-June and year-over-year numbers for the four top search engines: Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.

Hitwise

From May 2009 to June 2009, Google’s market share increased by about 0.5 percent up to 74.04 percent. But from June 2008 to June 2009, it was the only search engine whose market share increased, jumping 4 percent.

Yahoo’s and Ask’s numbers took a nosedive, dropping 17 percent and 22 percent respectively. Microsoft’s search engine – again, Live Search then Bing – saw its share decrease 4 percent year over year.

So, yes. In the short term, Bing grew at a rate of 25 percent in June. But looking at the month-to-month and year-over-year numbers, it seems Microsoft and the Bing marketing team still have a lot of work to do.

Source: Hitwise