Microsoft’s shrinking reputation in the search market took another blow with the release of figures by Comscore showing that they are no longer in third place in the ranks of major search engines. Chinese company Baidu have apparently overtaken them and and Korean engine NHN are only just behind as the far eastern markets become ever more important.

Given that according to Marketshare their worldwide search share already ranks considerably below the searches carried out on Google.co.uk and is only just above Google Canada I wonder what would happen if all the SEOs stopped running checks on all their clients keywords!! Considering that this is the search engine that is the default one for new Windows machines it shows how little faith people have in it.

Eagle-eyed viewers will notice that there are some pretty major differences between these two sets of figures. Which, if either, is correct I have no idea, but it’s pretty clear that with Google miles out in front Yahoo is the only other serious player. Despite considerable hype Ask don’t seem to be getting anywhere and you have to wonder about their future. Clearly the far east is a completely different market with its own dynamic and will develop very fast in the next few years. How the western companies respond to this will be interesting to observe.