Microsoft's (MSFT) Bing Gains Traction in January; Will You Be "Bing-Ing" in 2010?

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) might be starting to hear a "Bing-ing" in its ear as MSN from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) is slowly gaining market share from its search engine rivals.

According to comScore's January research on search volume for the U.S., Microsoft's Bing increased its share of the Internet search market to 11.3 percent from 10.7 percent in December.

Conversely, Google slowed to 65.4 percent in the first month of 2010 from 65.7 percent in December, the largest single month decline in traffic for the world's Internet search leader since the same month a year ago. Meanwhile, Yahoo! Inc.’s (NASDAQ: YHOO) dropped from 17.3 percent to 17 percent.

Google may not have anything to worry about just yet, as the company still has a stranglehold on both Microsoft and Yahoo!, but it should be considering the rapid growth of Bing over the last year as significant.

Microsoft's search engine has saw its search volume surge 49.6 percent in January over the same month last year as it continues make a name for in the market.

Yahoo! may have to start considering its new partner as a considerable threat. Search engine volume in the last year for Yahoo! has dipped 8.9 percent, a considerable higher loss than the 1.9 percent drop in December.

Bing may be on the road to becoming the No. 2 search engine in terms of traffic in the foreseeable future if it continues to siphon users away from Yahoo! and Google.

One key to the movement in the market for 2010 will be the potential impact of Bing replacing Google as the default search tool on Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone, iPod Touch and soon to be released iPad.

“We continue to believe that search will lead the recovery in advertising spending as marketers focus on their highest return investment segments," analysts from FBR Capital Markets stated.

FBR analysts see the search advertising industry as being more resilient to the current economic downturn, allowing growth to continue in the market.

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