Yahoo Search Market Share Apparently Inversely Related to Yahoo Share Price
Astonishing. Even as its headcount declines and the company’s profound lack of leadership drives its share price ever deeper into the mud, Yahoo is “getting fit” in the search market, of all places. According to comScore’s latest metrics, Yahoo saw an increase in search market share in September, apparently at the expense of Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG). Yahoo (YHOO) handled about 20.2 percent of state-side search queries in September, up from 19.6 percent in August. Meanwhile, Google handled 62.9 percent, down slightly from the 63 percent it handled the month prior. And Microsoft handled just 8.5 percent compared to the 8.9 percent it handled in August.
Why the sudden increase? The presidential elections almost certainly have something to do with it. But, more likely than not, it was driven largely by paranoid investors obsessively checking Yahoo Finance and its Stock Message Boards.