Yahoo Second Most Popular Search Engine Among Yahoo Users, But Not For Long!

Yahoo describes the search engine upgrade it introduced today as the most significant since it dumped Google’s technology and replaced it with its own.

And that may be true. It may be true as well, that with its integrated multimedia results and predictive “Search Assist” technology, Yahoo’s new “universal” search–according to Yahoo, at least–delivers faster, more relevant and engaging results than market leader Google.

But such claims to greatness don’t count for much when you’re competing with a rival that handles more than half of the Web’s search requests and rates highest in the most important search metric of all: user loyalty. And at last check, Google was fielding nearly 64% of all search queries, according to measurement outfit Hitwise. That’s nearly triple the number submitted to Yahoo (23%).

Yahoo has spent the past four years trying to trim Google’s lead in the search market while falling further and further behind it, despite improvements to its technology. And, if Yahoo’s No. 2 ranking in its own search-engine popularity index is any guide, it will spend the next four years that way as well.

“Is this (upgrade) going to be very important in terms of market share?” asked Standard & Poor’s equity analyst Scott Kessler. “I’m not so sure. But it probably will help them in terms of mind share.”

“Obviously, we have our eye on being No. 1 in search,” Vish Makhijani, Yahoo senior vice president and general manager, told The Wall Street Journal.

Of course you do. But you might want to prove you can stop losing search-market share before you go claiming you’re going to more than double it.