Bing Rises Above 17% Search Market Share As Google Slips [comScore]

Bing’s U.S. search market share has hit another all-time high, passing 17 percent for the first time. It gained at Google’s expense, as the search giant slipped six-tenths of a percentage point last month. That’s from comScore’s April 2013 qSearch report, just out today.

For the month, comScore says there were slightly more than 20 billion “core” searches (mobile not included), a small decline from 20.4 billion in March.

Google accounted for 66.5 percent of core searches in April, down 0.6 from March’s 67.1 percent. Google’s loss was matched by gains at Bing and Yahoo. Bing’s share rose 0.4 to 17.3 percent — and all-time high and the first time Bing’s market share has been above 17 percent. Yahoo also reversed a downward trend by rising from 11.8 percent in March to 12 percent in April.

It’s anyone’s guess what helped propel Bing above 17 percent for the first time, but Microsoft has continued to pound away promoting its Bing It On comparison campaign that launched last September. On the other hand, search market share numbers have been known to flip-flop and next month’s numbers could tell an entirely different story.