1 month after launching Bing, Microsoft still a distant third to Google, Yahoo in Web search

After Bing’s first month, Microsoft still No. 3

SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp.’s redesigned search site remains a distant third to Google and Yahoo despite getting a slight boost in its first month.

ComScore Inc. estimates that Bing, the new site, snagged 8.4 percent of U.S. Web searches in June, up from 8 percent in May.

It appears Microsoft’s slight gain was Yahoo’s loss. Google’s share stayed steady at 65 percent. But Yahoo’s dipped to 19.6 percent in June, losing about as much as Bing gained.

Google’s dominance means a bigger slice of revenue from search advertising, the small text ads that appear next to search results.

Microsoft has been trying to catch up for years, both with Live Search, its previous Web search incarnation, and by trying to buy Yahoo. The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker is trying again with Bing, which it says does a better job than competitors for searches related to travel, shopping and health.

Analysts were underwhelmed by the June results. Barclays Capital analyst Douglas Anmuth wrote that he expected Bing’s share to come in between 10 percent and 11 percent. Anmuth reported the comScore figures in a research note Wednesday.

“Bing doesn’t exactly set the world on fire,” Benjamin Schachter, an analyst for Broadpoint AmTech, wrote in a note to investors. “We continue to believe much of Bing’s early interest is being driven by curiosity and early adopters, and not from fundamentally better search experiences or outcomes.”

Microsoft executives have said that they don’t expect an immediate change in Bing’s search share, but the comScore estimates were lower than early June reports showing Microsoft’s share topping 10 percent.