Google's U.S. search share nears 70 percent

Google's steadily increasing search share neared 70 percent in June in the United States, according to new figures released Tuesday by Hitwise. Its share increased from 68.29 percent in May to 69.17 percent in June, the analyst firm said. Over the same period, Yahoo dropped from 19.95 percent to 19.62 percent and Microsoft dropped from 5.89 percent to 5.46 percent. Search share is important to the companies' business because it means there's a potentially larger inventory of search results against which advertisements can be sold.