comScore Media Metrix today released its monthly qSearch analysis of activity across competitive search engines.

Google Maintains top Market Share

In July 2005, Google maintained its market share lead in the U.S. search market with 36.5 percent of all the searches submitted, followed by Yahoo! at 30.5 percent and MSN at 15.5 percent.

MSN Leads in Volume Growth

The total volume of online searches conducted in the U.S. increased by 22 percent year-over-year in July, reaching more than 4.8 billion. Market consolidation continued as the top six search engines – Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Time Warner (AOL), Ask Jeeves, and InfoSpace – accounted for 99.4 percent of all searches, up from 98.5 percent in July 2004. MSN-Microsoft saw the highest search volume gain among any of the top search engines, rising 30 percent from July 2004, accounting for 744 million domestic searches.

Yahoo! Tops inU.S. Toolbar Searches

The popularity of search toolbars has leveled off during the course of the past year, but usage remains high. In July, 11 percent of all domestic searches were conducted via toolbars, up from 8 percent in July 2004. Yahoo! remains the most popular toolbar, serving as the starting point for 51 percent of all toolbar searches executed in July. Yahoo! toolbars processed more than 282 million searches during the month, a 74-percent increase over the previous year.