Did Google really lose search market share to Microsoft Bing in April?

Statcounter has updated its search engine market share stats for April – and the results are shocking. If they’re true. I’m doubtful – but hoping Statcounter will confirm whether these numbers are indeed accurate.

By the numbers. Google’s U.S. search market share in the U.S. fell to 77.52% in April, down from 86.94% in March and down from 88.8% in April 2023. Meanwhile:

• Microsoft Bing grew to 13.05% in April, up from 8.04% in March.
• Yahoo (!) grew to 7.3%, up from 2.48% in March.

See why I’m skeptical yet? How are Microsoft Bing and Yahoo growing that much in one month?

But wait, there’s more.

Google’s global search engine market share dropped from 91.38% in March to 86.99% in April. Meanwhile:

• Microsoft Bing grew to 5.8% in April, up from 3.35% in March.
• Yahoo grew to 3.06% in April, up from 1.1% in March.

There are other unexplainable swings – some bigger than others – found in other regions as well, based on Statcounter’s data.

But. Before you start cheering, the data seems suspect. Some are expecting Statcounter to “correct” these figures because these sorts of big swings seem impossible and unprecedented.

Why we care. My first thought after seeing these numbers was: they seem wrong. User behavior doesn’t change this rapidly. While SEOs and others have been heavily critical of Google over the past few years, often with good reason, I’ve never seen market share figures swing like this in one month unless there was a change to how the data was collected or there is some sort of issue with the data.

What Statcounter is saying. Nothing yet, but I’ve emailed the company to get some insight into whether these numbers are accurate.