Google Search Getting Stronger

Microsoft and Yahoo can pump as much money and time into improving search technology, but at the end of the day, having a household brand name makes all the difference. What do I mean? Google is still king of search, while the rest of the gang struggles with failed incentives, R&D costs and market share. Here are the stats for last month and 2008 provided by HitWise
Google’s (GOOG) share of the U.S. search market increased to 72.07% in December, from 71.97% in November and 65.98% a year ago.

Yahoo’s (YHOO) share was 17.79%, up a tad from 17.70% in November, but down from 20.88% a year ago.

Microsoft’s (MSFT) share was 5.56%, up from 5.45% in November, but down from 7.04% a year ago.

Ask.com (IACI) had 3.15% market share, down from 3.35% in November, and 4.14% a year ago.
For all of 2008, Google accounted for 69.48% of all U.S. searches, up 8 percentage points from 2007.