Yahoo, Bing Beat Google in Search Success Rate

A Google search might not be your best bet if you want to find what you’re looking for online, new data suggests.

Even though 66 percent of all searches in July were conducted using Google’s search engine, more than 80 percent of searches conducted on both Yahoo and Bing were successful, compared to only 68 percent of Google searches. Experian Hitwise, the online competitive intelligence company that released the figures last Thursday, defines a successful search as one that results in a person actually clicking through to a Web site.

The report comes just weeks after a debate between tech experts about whether or not Microsoft should sell Bing.

Columnists at The New York Times wrote that Bing has become a “distraction for the software giant” considering Bing and sites it powers such as Yahoo only control about 27 percent of the U.S. market.

Computerworld volleyed back that 27 percent of the market is still “a tremendous revenue opportunity” and that ”if Microsoft abandons Bing, it might as well just about abandon its entire online presence, because aside from Hotmail, Bing is its only substantial Internet service.”

The Experian Hitwise report says that July was the third straight month that Bing-powered searches increased. They accounted for 28 percent of the online searches conducted in July.