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Microsoft’s renewed assault on Google’s domination of the internet does not appear to be paying off, with its new ‘decision engine’ (Bing.com) and future partner Yahoo! both losing market share in the US last month.

Bing has experienced a drop of 8% in first page advertising according to the latest report released by the internet research company AdGooRoo.

The ‘decision engine’ was launched in June this year and was the fastest growing search engine in August, according to The Register, results from the third fiscal quarter of 2009 indicate that internet advertisers prefer the wider reach offered by the search engine giant Google - even though Bing, along with Yahoo!, delivers a higher conversion rate (the number of visitors that eventually become customers).

Despite its inferior conversion rate, Google is still the preferred choice for first-page advertisers, achieving a new record 81.2 % share of the search engine advertising market. Bing saw its share of searches in the US fall from 9.48% in August to 8.96% last month, in spite of the colossal $80m (£50m) advertising budget Microsoft allocated to its launch.

The report released by AdGooRoo States that "Google has become the premium supplier of high-volume search traffic.”

"Despite having lower conversion rates on whole than either Yahoo! or Bing, it drives far higher volume and a very respectable ROI, making it an excellent choice for established brand advertisers."

Eric Schmidt, Google chief executive, recently backed up the rise in Google’s market share by proclaiming “the worst is behind us” in terms of the advertising recession, saying the company is seeing “aspects of recovery” in both the US and Europe.
In direct contrast to Microsoft, which is cutting costs and plans to shed 5,000 jobs over the next year. Mr. Schmidt said that Google has increased its hiring rate and investment in anticipation of that recovery, the first signs of which he began to see as early as spring 2010.
AdGooRoo ended their report stating that "Google is unlikely to lose their lead, while Bing will need to spend exorbitant sums to gain (or even maintain) market share, a precarious situation at best. In this light, a Bing-Yahoo! partnership is a sound decision."

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