Americans conducted 6.4 billion searches last month, down 6 percent from the 6.8 billion searches conducted in May. But the June figure was still up 29 percent from the 5 billion searches conducted in June 2005, according to comScore. The decline in search volume from May is considered a seasonal effect. Last month, Google sites led in search query volume, with 2.9 billion searches conducted, followed by Yahoo sites, with 1.8 billion searches, and MSN/Microsoft sites, which had 818 million.
Google and Yahoo continued to dominate the Web browser toolbar search market, combining for more than 95 percent of the market share in June. Google grabbed 49.6 percent of toolbar searches, while Yahoo captured 46.1 percent, comScore said.
During the second quarter of 2006, Web users conducted 19.9 billion searches, up 12 percent from the 17.7 billion searches conducted in the first quarter, and up 30 percent from the 15.3 billion searches conducted in second quarter of last year, according to comScore.
In the second quarter of this year, Google sites registered the most search queries performed, with 8.8 billion, followed by Yahoo sites, with 5.6 billion, and MSN/Microsoft, with 2.6 billion, comScore said.
Each of the major search engines saw increases in search activity in the second quarter compared with previous quarters. Google saw the greatest increase in search activity, followed by Yahoo and MSN.