Google Inc. continues to hold its own atop the search market despite being targeted by Microsoft Corp. and its well-received Bing search engine in recent months.
The Nielsen Co. reported yesterday that Google's engine answered some 6.7 billion search queries in the U.S. last month, accounting for 67.3% of all online searches. The company's share in November was 65.4%.
Google's share has increased by more than 6% since July, when held 61% of the market in July, according to Nielsen.
Nielsen said that Yahoo Inc. had the second highest market share in December -- 14.4%. The Yahoo share is down by just under 1% from November, Nielsen said.
Microsoft's Bing also showed a slight slip in December. Neilsen listed Bing's November share at 10.7% compared to December's 9.9%.
Bing, unveiled last June , made strong gains in the search market - in the U.S. and globally -- early on. But Bing's momentum started to stumble a bit in September when it saw its first slip in market share.
Microsoft and Yahoo in July announced plans to join forces in a search and online advertising deal to better take on Google.