Search Market in December: Same as it Ever Was

The Nielsen Company released its U.S. search data for December 2009 this morning and they are another slight variation on the same old story: Google continues to dominate the market, while Yahoo, Microsoft and everyone else tries to catch up.

According to Nielsen’s rankings, Google (GOOG) captured a 67.3 percent share of the month’s searches–up from 65.4 percent in November. Meanwhile, Yahoo (YHOO) claimed 14.4 percent and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Bing 9.9 percent of the market.

It’s worth noting that both Yahoo and Bing suffered declines in December. Yahoo slipped nearly a full percentage point from its 15.3 percent market share in November as did Bing, which fell from 10.7 percent. (See tables below; click to enlarge.)