Jul 16 2007
Microsoft Gains Search Engine Market Share - DUH
By Jeremy Schoemaker
55 comments 
Lately I keep seeing stories about Microsoft Search’s recent surge in market share. For Example:
Compete.com - June Search Market Share: Big Surprise from MSN
Techcrunch - Could Microsoft Knock Off Yahoo To Become Google’s Biggest Competitor?
Umm did anyone forget that they just sold 40 million copies of Windows Vista? Also this resets everyones default search engine to MSN And is much more integrated with the intarweb then xp ever was?
Seriously…. Wow big surprise Microsoft had more searches! I bet if I wrote a application to set everyones search engine and highly integrated it into there operating system my search engine would now have amazing market share!!
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Great Points, Jeremy. Glad you’re able to see the forest through the trees on that one.
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Yeah they also made one of their gaming sites users use their search engine for some game or something, that added like millions of extra queries.
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Yea Vista definitely played a role in it and it will continue to do so as more copies sell. Great post, made me laugh.
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First you need people to buy your application, if you get 40.000.000 people to buy it, then there is a chance.
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MSN/Microsoft/Live/Whatever Search: Bigger and more irrelevant than ever!
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My issue of vista came set with google….. althought I may have been given a choice upon setup.
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In the end who cares? Google is still #1 and aren’t losing the position any time soon
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They should just make their search better instead of playing these games
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Especially given the fact that 98% of users don’t know how to reset the default search. Their market share is only going to increase as people’s old computers wear out and they are forced to buy machines with Vista.
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I was given a choice the first time I ran IE7 on Vista. I don’t recall there even being a default. You just had to pick one… and I picked Google.
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When I installed IE7 on my XP machine, the default search was MSN, but then when I hit the Google homepage, Google showed a little ‘pop-up’ that asked me if I wasnt to make my default search engine Google and of course I did. I bet the same thing happens for Vista IE7 users.
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Should I believe that MS Vista installations increased their search market share.. difficult to believe so, but pretty much possible.
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Who goes up and who goes down in the numbers from month to month depends on who you ask–complete.com will have one number, ComScore will have different numbers, Alexa will have different numbers…and so on. It really depends on who you ask. Microsoft certainly is one of the top three, and I just consider Yahoo!, MSN, and Google the top three, I don’t really look too much at the numbers, to be honest with you.
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I’ve never really used MSN search in forever. Imagine how many people out there are like me…
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Live search or MSN Search or whatever they want to call it, really sucks. Ive been doing websites for a long time and pretty much they dont rank sites worth a crap. I dont really know of any website that rank well for msn without optimizing for them. Who is going to optimize for them when google gets over %50 of the search market share alone.
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It does suck. I dont even pay attention to msn to be honest. Its a shame that a company with so many billions of dollars cant do something better.
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I think MS needs to move forward in a serious way an not just bank on its OS to carry it.
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good point
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See, the key to competing with giants like Google and Yahoo is to either be or become a large corporation, like Microsoft! Keep on blogging, and you will have enough money to compete with giants like these! Not only that, but you’ll be able to do it in 10 minutes of your spare time! Send me $10 in food stamps and I’ll show you how. Throw in another $5, and you’ll own the Brooklyn bridge! Seriously, though, is this an ego thing with them.. or do they need… more… and… more.. give.. me.. more…
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… feed me Seymour.. feed..me…
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i think we can all laugh along with this article and at the same time feel badly ashamed and embarrassed for msn’s bitter sweet accomplishment
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lol this was my initial reaction too. There so many people ou t there that doesn’t change the default search engine in IE7, so it’s no wonder. On the other hand maybe Yahoo should start being a bit more aggressive.
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It sure will. How integrated is it? I’ve been seriously holding off on Vista - wasn’t sure if all of my applications would run correctly on it yet.
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Id use the Shoemoney search every day if it came integrated
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I have used Google and Google only since it has came out. Pretty amazing to think about. I dont think Microsoft will ever be a threat, even if they do hijack your computer with their own search
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I use them all, but mostly google. If I dont get what I want from google, I move on to yahoo
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It’s incredible that every time Microsoft releases a new operating system, they get a fresh chance to greatly increase their search engine market share.
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Yeah, that and Microsoft’s market share from Vista installs will slowly decline as the newbies get their computer set up the way they like it (e.g. Google as the default engine).
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I don’t have Vista yet either, I am waiting for the same reason as you (the compatibility issues). More and more programs will become compatible as time passes so pretty soon we should be fine.
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No matter what they’re still going to be behind Google!
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Thats right
No one can beat Google in search marketing!
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I’m still shocked that Microsoft hasn’t done more to stay on top of the search engines. They wouldn’t be in the top three if not for them being the default browser. With their money and resources they could rank in the top two if they tried. I guess they are spending more time on software. Maybe that’s the best for them…
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I’ve never really used it either, other than to see what my rankings were for certain terms so that I could compare it to Google and Yahoo
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As mentioned in the other comments, does Windows Vista say it all or what?
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Screw vista, and honestly, screw Microsoft. The only good thing to come out of Microsoft was 98 and XP. They have bigger market share because they basically own the god damn market with their monopolization of windows.
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You can design your product in any way you like. That’s life.
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Hm, I wish it was Google that would go 3rd.
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Microsoft seems to be rocking and it is an alarm for Google
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The goal of all corporations is to maximize profit. By nature all corporations are greedy.
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LOL, Yahoo more aggressive? I don’t even think that is possible. Yahoo can be bested by almost anyone at this point. They used to be relevant but seems like they willingly gave up their authority status.
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This is their only winning tactic. They just incorporate everyone else’s programs into theirs in hopes of taking over. Browsers, searches, PDF, and anything else they can think of. Now they are turning to furniture with that Microsoft Surface.
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What a lot of people are missing in these numbers and spikes are the waves of searches coming from their club.live.com where users play games that are tightly integrated with Live search and they earn tickets to win prizes (Like Vista and Zunes…big surprise lol).
Although some are crediting the spikes to this what most are missing is that a good percentage of those spikes are because of the massive cheating that was going on with this game. There were numerous huge forums and tens of thousands of users using macros and bots to play the games for them (as well as fake searches) earning tickets in minutes rather than months. So tens of thousands of users running millions of quiries 24/7 and the numbers are going to be jacked. Watch as the spike turns the other way as they finally caught on and have stopped most of the cheaters from botting the games ;).
More details on my blog ;P
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Microsofts in your face - shove our products down your throat approach to business really pisses me off. Then I get even madder when I see it works…
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Dot Driven - I see what you are saying, but don’t most of the search engines do that, with maybe the exception of Google? Yahoo gets loads of traffic from it’s free email. Now to think of it, I bet Google is too.
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What in the hell are you talking about? I mean, your sarcasm it really makes me cry. Let me ask you something Mr Shoe, whats the default search engine to FireFox users?
It is a marketing strategy, and you as owner of AuctionAds should know very well this.
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Oh damn…and Shoe things its Microsoft only playing that way…i remember something like Dell..Google…not sure what was it *rubs his head*
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They still don’t refer much traffic. I would like nothing more than for Google to have some competition.
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I would love to see equal competition against Google
Im not sure who I want more, Yahoo or MSN
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Great, cause MSN converts very well. I need more of that traffic!
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so would I
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And with them now just winning a 3 year advertising deal on Digg.com - things are looking up!
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Now that I think about it, we need more competition..
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I find MSN to be a much better search engine than yahoo in many ways… relevancy seems to be one of them. When searching yahoo, within there top 10 results, 2-5 of the results are yahoos own content, i hate that. When searching for finance, yahoo lists there own finance section, suprisingly not the first result, making users think it is another site, exactly what they were looking for to begin with. MSN does seem to allow keyword stuffing which might upset some webmasters! For internal search results, these show in side bars rather than search results to allow a much better end user experience!
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