The latest search figures out in comscore’s qSearch October 07 analysis highlighted another strong month in terms of search volumes in the US market. The top 5 major search engines all recorded at least 5% growth from September 07.

In terms of “share of search”, there was no surprise in Google taking top honors with approx 6.1 million searches in the US. Google gained an extra 1.5 share points to command an imposing 58.5 per cent of the US search market.

Yahoo! sites held on to second spot with 22.9 per cent, recording an eight per cent increase from September to 2.4 billion searches. While Yahoo!’s overall searches were up, it lost 0.8 share points during the month, increasing the gap to primary rival - Google.

Microsoft followed Yahoo!’s trend by increasing search volume but losing share of search. Microsoft held 9.7 per cent of the search market - down 0.6 share points from September.

The Ask.com network took out fourth place with 4.7 per cent of the US search market. Ask.com reported the strongest search volume growth in October, growing a staggering 23 per cent with 493 million searches.

Facebook entered the top 50 rankings for the first time in October in 9th spot. The social network recorded 152 million searches, which given the nature of the site, is an impressive debut.

All told - no unexpected results with ComScore’s latest qSearch report. The team at Ask.com will surely be elated with the increased penetration in the US market, while Yahoo! and Microsoft will continue to search for an answer to Google’s dominance.