For the first time in 12 months, Google’s market share has declined

New statistics from ComScore Networks for July 2006 came as a surprise to analysts and to all who follow the search market on the Internet. For one single month, Google’s share of the American search market on the Internet has decreased by a whole percentage point: from 44.7% in June to 43.7% in July. This is even more shocking if we take into account the continuous growth of Google’s share over the past 12 months. Google shares fell immediately by 1.5% after the appearance of this negative information.

At the same time, the share of Yahoo increased by 0.3 percentage points up to 28.8%. Yahoo has been growing for the second month in a row

Other analytics companies are critical to the statistics of ComScore Networks, but also point out the fall in Google’s market share in July: Hitwise - by 0.4 percentage points, and Nielsen NetRatings - by 0.2 percentage points.