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According to new data from Experian Hitwise, October was the month of the underdog with respect to the search market.  The two search companies that usually dominate lost a bit of share, while Bing (and to a lesser degree, Ask) gained ground.

Let’s start with the success stories.  Bing’s market share rose from 8.96 percent in September to 9.57 percent in October, which represents an increase of 6.8 percent.  That’s nothing to sneer at, even if Bing remains solidly in third place.

Fourth-place Ask also made a small amount of progress as its share increased from 2.56 percent to 2.62 percent – a jump of 2.3 percent that’s far better than a dip.

Meanwhile, Google came sort of close to losing its grasp on the 70 percent mark, slipping from 71.08 percent to 70.60 percent on a month-to-month basis.  And Yahoo fared about the same, moving from a market share of 16.38 percent to 16.14 percent.

As always, it’s not smart to read too far into a single month’s search report.  Still, Experian Hitwise also recorded a Yahoo loss (and Ask gain) in September, so a trend may be starting to emerge.

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