comScore Networks today released its monthly qSearch analysis of activity across competitive search engines. In March 2006, Google gained in search market share versus year ago for the eighth consecutive month and maintained its status as market leader with 42.7 percent of searches conducted on its sites. Yahoo! remained in second place with 28.0 percent, while MSN ranked third with 13.2 percent.

Share of Online Searches by Engine March 2006 vs. March 2005 Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users Source: comScore qSearch Mar-05 Mar-06 Point Change Total Internet Population 100% 100% N/A Google Sites 36.4 42.7 6.3 Yahoo! Sites 30.6 28.0 -2.6 MSN-Microsoft Sites 16.5 13.2 -3.3 Time Warner Network 8.9 7.6 -1.4 Ask Jeeves/Ask Network 5.5 5.9 0.4 — Americans conducted 6.4 billion searches online in March, up 10 percent from last month and 15 percent from last year. The increase in search queries from the previous month marked the largest gain over the past twelve months. — Google Sites led the pack with 2.7 billion search queries performed, followed by Yahoo Sites (1.8 billion), MSN-Microsoft (849 million), Time-Warner Network (486 million), and Ask Jeeves/Ask Network (376 million). — The toolbar search market continues to be dominated by Google and Yahoo!, which combined for more than 95 percent of toolbar searches in March. Google led the way with 48.9 percent, while Yahoo! captured 46.5 percent.

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