Microsoft and Yahoo gain more search ground on Google

Google saw its two biggest search competitors make up slight ground last month.

The latest monthly report from research firm comScore places Google's share of the June US search load at 62.6 percent, down from 63.7 percent in May.

Meanwhile, both Microsoft and Yahoo's search engines saw their market shares increase by 0.6 percent on the month. June was the fourth straight month in which both Yahoo and Microsoft were able to grow their shares of the market.

"Both Yahoo sites and Microsoft sites have experienced gains due in part to the continued utilisation of contextual search approaches that tie content and related search results together," the company said.

For Yahoo, the gain brings its share of the market to 18.9 percent, while Microsoft claimed a 12.7 percent share. Ask Network sites saw no change to their share, pulling in 3.6 percent. AOL Network rounded out the top five with a 2.2 percent share, down from 2.3 percent last month.

Overall, each of the top five sites saw their traffic loads grow, with the total search load expanding by 3 percent on the month. Yahoo and Microsoft pulled the largest gains with 7 percent and eight percent, respectively. Google's US search traffic was up one per cent.