While International search trend typically focus on which search engine will grow to compete with Google, in UK that trend is not happening. Google by far the most favorite search engine in UK.

The latest analysis from Hitwse shows that Yahoo! Search and MSN Search each powered just over 7 percent of UK Internet searches in the four weeks to 20th May 2006. This analysis takes into account UK and .com search properties.

Google continues to dominate the UK search market, powering more than three-quarters (77%) of UK Internet searches for the 4 weeks to 20th May 2006. Google UK is also the most visited website in the UK, receiving more than twice the share of visits compared with the #2 ranked site, MSN Hotmail.

Another interesting finding: while Google’s launches of several new services attract the attention of the industry commentators and webmasters, they are not gaining traction with UK consumers.

For instance, Google Finance ranked 201 in Business & Finance - Business Information category with a 0.04 percent share of category visits; compare to Yahoo! UK & Ireland Finance, which ranked #1 in the same category with 8.3 percent of market share in the week ending 206h May 2006.

Seems like Google is known as “the” search engine, but not yet as an information portal. Yahoo! and MSN are much more popular in UK for other services.

Source: Hitwise.