April 08 2008
Google top again, again
Microsoft gives Yahoo an ultimatum while Google just gets on with the job and increases its lead over Yahoo and Microsoft.
US Hitwise figures for March show that Google accounted for 67.25 percent of all US searches in the four weeks ending March 29, 2008. Yahoo, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 20.29, 5.25 and 4.09 percent respectively. The remaining 46 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for just 1.72 percent of US searches.
Looking at the trend over the last year Google is now 3.12% up on its position back in March 2007 while Yahoo is down 0.97% and Microsoft is down a 2.36% over the same period.
Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories. Comparing March 2008 to March 2007, the Travel, Entertainment, Business and Finance and Sports categories showed double digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines, but shopping and classifieds remain exactly the same at 25.35% of traffic from search engines.
While all this has been going on Microsoft has set a deadline for the Yahoo board to approve its acquisition offer.
Chief executive Steve Ballmer has written to Yahoo's board of directors, asking them to accept the offer within three weeks.
If the board does not approve the acquisition, Microsoft has vowed to appeal directly to the shareholders to replace the board with one that will green-light the deal.
"It is unfortunate that, by choosing not to enter into substantive negotiations with us, you have failed to give due consideration to a transaction that has tremendous benefits for Yahoo's shareholders and employees," wrote Ballmer.
With Google getting bigger by the day and Yahoo getting smaller, is the purchase really worth it anymore? The gap is getting so big that even if they bought two Yahoos they still wouldn’t come close to Google.
