Online retailers continue to spend money for search, but so far that's not impacting Bing's bottom line for Microsoft, according to a recent report. Microsoft's share of online advertising remained at 6 percent for Bing in the second quarter, well behind
Google search -- according to a study by research firm Searchignite.
Microsoft has lingered at the 6 percent mark for several years with Bing's predecessor, Live Search. Google, however, has proven a tough act for competitors including Microsoft to beat: Yahoo lost share mainly to Google in the second quarter, according to Searchignite. With 17 percent of advertising dollars, Yahoo is well ahead of Bing. Still, Yahoo's got worries as its search share is down 26 percent compared with the second quarter of 2008. Most of that share was lost to Google, which captured 77 percent of search spend in the second quarter, the report said.
Searchignite said that some reports have noted Bing's percentage of search query share has increased since its launch. However, advertiser spending has so far not yet followed suit.
"Search query share is an indication of consumer interest in the engine, while spend share reflects advertisers' interest in the engine relative to its competitors," said the report. "Typically, advertiser spend lags behind search query share so an increase in consumer interest could yield an increase in advertiser spend in Q3 '09 if Bing's query market share continues to improve."
Retail was the leader in advertising spend for the quarter, with June
showing a steep rise, up 55 percent compared with June 2008. Other segments, such as travel and finance, were down for the quarter.
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