MSN Search growth lags far behind major rivals

TechWeb | at | by Mike

Microsoft's MSN portal lagged far behind rivals Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. in search growth in March, a Web metrics firm said Monday.

The number of searches on MSN increased by only 9 percent in March, compared with the same month a year ago, Nielsen/NetRatings said. Growth on Google and Yahoo, on the other hand, soared by 41 percent and 47 percent, respectively, outpacing the overall search growth rate of 36 percent from a year ago.

In terms of number of searchers, Google incrased to 2.9 billion from 2.1 billion, Yahoo to 1.3 billion from 907.8 million, and MSN to 643.8 million from 592.2 million.