A leader in measuring the digital world, comScore released its January 2012 search engine ranking for the US market last February 9. According to the figures they presented, Google gained shares last month while Bing outranked Yahoo in “explicit core search.”

US Explicit Core Search

For those who are not familiar with the term, a user who strongly intends to interact with the search results conducts “explicit core search”. In this area, Google led the US explicit core search with 66.2% market share, followed by Microsoft (15.2) and Yahoo (14.1).

Last month, search engine users conducted 17.8 billion explicit core searches, with 11.8 billion of it done at Google sites. Microsoft’s Bing ranked second with 2.7 billion searches, getting ahead of Yahoo with 2.5 billion sites. There’s also an increase in organic search, with Google garnering 68.4% of searches for January; while Bing carried 26.5 of organic searches. The data simply indicates that more users are using Microsoft’s Bing search now compared to Yahoo.

US Total Core Search

Total Core Search is measured based on five major searches, which includes partner, cross-channel, and contextual searches. Although Bing outranked Yahoo in explicit core search, the total core search indicates otherwise.

Last month, Americans conducted almost 20 billion total core searches, with 13.2 billion of it were conducted in Google. It’s followed by Yahoo with 3.2 billion and Microsoft with 2.8 billion searches.

About comScore

A company that measures the digital world, comScore conducts consumer research through toolbars, widgets, affiliates and cross-channel searches. In order to measure the full extent of consumer search activity, they gather their data from 41 countries across the world. The consumer behavior research firm does the following:

• Measure the search volume for all traditional websites and other major sites.
• Accounts toolbar, widget, affiliate, cross-channel and other search types for total search volume.
• Monitors search activity on specific channels like map, images, and videos conducted at 41 countries.
• Measures 16 key search metrics, and presents it in segments, country and media type.

Other than the ranking, comScore also shared that the “search alliance” share of queries remains at 29%. With their recent data, it’s safe to say that Google is still the search engine giant, while Bing doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. If businesses can leverage their search engine optimization campaigns on the leading search engines, then they can surely boost their online traffic.