ComScore: Combined Microsoft and Yahoo U.S. search share stuck at 28 percent

The December 2010 comScore search data is out. While Microsoft is continuing to make modest gains, Microhoo is not.

Google’s U.S. explicit core search share was up slightly over November. Yahoo’s was down, and Microsoft’s also was up slightly.

(Explicit core search share removes certain categories of searches that comScore doesn’t deem to be actual “user-engaged” searches.)

Here’s what the last three months looked like, according to comScore:

Google (percent U.S. explicit core search market)
October 66.3
November 66.2
December 66.6

Yahoo
October 16.5
November 16.4
December 16.0

Microsoft
October 11.5
November 11.8
December 12.0

Microhoo (Microsoft +Yahoo)
October 28.0
November 28.2
December 28.0

Three months doesn’t an absolute trend make, but Microsoft is continuing to grow its U.S. search share constinually, according to the comScore data. On the other hand, as some pundits predicted would happen, Yahoo’s share is continuing to shrink constantly. The net: The overall share of Microhoo is hovering around 28 percent.

Yahoo officials said this week the global transition of certain Yahoo Search back-end functions to Microsoft’s search platform is continuing, and the company just completed that transition for organic search in Australia, Brazil and Mexico.

Google’s gotten some bad press around the quality (or lack thereof) of its search results as of late. But will average users ever see that information or care? I’m curious whether Microsoft can grow Bing beyond 28 percent share here in the U.S. — minus any kind of major gaffe by Google. Do you see that happening? If so, how?