It is obvious that Google (GOOG) is the big honcho of search. Microsoft (MSFT) has been trying (and trying) to get in on the action for years. We all remember a few months ago when Bing announced with great fanfare and bigger hopes that they were ready to take on the Goog.. What happened?

From what we can see, Google actually gained market share since then. And while Microsoft’s Bing made a huge splash initially, it appears that it was more of a statistical improvement rather than anything else.

The chart below shows something of interest. When Microsoft first exclaimed victory with a 3% jump in market share for their search, we can now see that most of that was from the change from their Live! statistics. The “other ” category dropped off just as Bing started… showing that the MSN and Live! search suffered as the conversion to Bing was completed.

So, did Bing actually win market share? Apparently not.