Microsoft loses ground in search stakes

After gaining ground for a couple months, Microsoft's search business lost market share in April, while Google and Yahoo! posted gains, according to statistics released by Nielsen/NetRatings.

Microsoft saw its share of the market slip to nine per cent, down from 10.1 per cent a month earlier. Google, meanwhile, increased its lead, accounting for 55.2 per cent of web searches, up from 53.7 per cent in March. Yahoo! grew its share to 21.9 per cent, up narrowly from the 21.8 per cent share it held in March.

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The April results return to a familiar pattern of Google gaining ground at the expense of its chief rivals, although Microsoft had been doing a bit better in recent months. In its January profits conference call, Microsoft executives indicated they were not pleased with the company's search results.

AOL remained in fourth place for April but saw its share slip to 5.4 per cent from 5.8 per cent in March, while Ask.com held steady in fifth place with 1.8 per cent of search queries.

In an interview at Microsoft's Strategic Account Summit two weeks ago, a top executive expressed hope Redmond was starting to make inroads in search but said it might not post gains every month.

Referring to the fact Microsoft had posted share gains for each of the past three months, the software behemoth's chief advertising strategist, Yusuf Mehdi, said: "I'm not even going to say it's a trend yet. I'm not going to predict that that's the bottom and now it's all up but that's momentum."

Ina Fried writes for CNET News.com