Is Bing Already More Popular than Yahoo Search?

File this under "Whoa! Really?" but Microsoft's new search engine (don't tell them I called it that), Bing, has just passed Yahoo Search to become the number 2 search engine after Google. Can this be true?



According to StatCounter, it is. The company revealed a traffic analysis Thursday that shows Bing has passed Yahoo Search after only a few days of being available to the public, coming in at 16.28% versus Yahoo's 10.22%. And the study also suggests that Bing took most of that share from Google not Yahoo. Bing has since fallen back below Yahoo, but not by much, meaning it's still in the running to overtake Yahoo completely.

Of course, there are several possible explanations for this, the most obvious being that Bing is just getting a lot of curiosity traffic from its launch as people stop by to see what all the hype is about. Or it could have something to do with the fact that IE6 users were forced to use Bing as their default search engine.

But then there's also the option that no one wants to attribute to a Microsoft product: could it really just be that good? Is Bing really converting people that quickly? Call me skeptical, but I'll need to see similar evidence from other tracking services as well as sustained growth for a while to come before I believe it. But who knows, maybe this is the first sign that Google is about to see its first major competition.

For more tech news, check out these other posts:

Bing Ads Break Today: Is Less Really the New More?

The E3 2009 Top 10 List

Mossberg Confirms New iPhone to be Announced Next Week

Video of Asus Eee Keyboard in Action, Looks Fantastic

Best Buy to Offer Free Upgrades to Windows 7