In February, Google Sites extended its share of core searches to 59.2 percent, up from 58.5 percent the previous month. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 21.6 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.6 percent), AOL LLC (4.9 percent), and Ask Network (4.6 percent).

Search Entity                Jan-08        Feb-08      Jan vs. FebTotal Core Search            100.0%        100.0%         0.0Google Sites                  58.5%         59.2%         0.7Yahoo! Sites                  22.2%         21.6%        -0.6Microsoft Sites                9.8%          9.6%        -0.2AOL Network                    4.9%          4.9%         0.0Ask Network                    4.6%          4.5%         0.1

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

Americans conducted 9.9 billion searches at the core search engines, representing a 6-percent decline versus January. Each of the five core search engines experienced search query declines as a result of February being a seasonally soft month for overall search activity. Google Sites saw more than 5.8 billion core searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.1 billion, and Microsoft Sites with 953 million.

Search Entity                Jan-08        Feb-08      Jan vs. FebTotal Core Search            10,492         9,882        -6.0%Google Sites                  6,139         5,855        -5.0%Yahoo! Sites                  2,332         2,136        -8.0%Microsoft Sites               1,030           953        -7.0%AOL Network                     514           488        -5.0%Ask Network                     475           450        -5.0%

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

Source: comScore