Microsoft’s Bing search engine has grown for the second consecutive month, rising to 8.9% from 8.4%, while Google and Yahoo both lost 0.3% each.

ComScore’s latest US figures showed search leader Google declining to 64.7% from 65% in June, and second-ranked Yahoo easing to 19.3%, from 19.6%, though they remain an order of magnitude ahead of Microsoft’s product, which grabbed 8% market share in May when it launched.

As a percentage change, Google's search query total fell by 4%, Yahoo's fell by 5%, and Microsoft's increased by 2% reports Information Week.

“Although Bing took a bit of share from both Google and Yahoo, we are reluctant to extrapolate this into meaningful long-term share gains,” Broadpoint AmTech analyst Benjamin Schachter wrote in a note to investors.

The search figures don’t follow mapping, local directory, and user-generated video site queries.

Microsoft inked a deal to take over search at Yahoo late last month with Bing powering searches on both companies' sites and Yahoo handling the ad sales - meaning cannibalising Yahoo’s market share is not something they want.

Once Bing also takes over Yahoo's search, its numbers will probably top 25% reports ReadWriteWeb.

Bing’s unique features include grouping product reviews together and showing predictions for airfares, although these have yet to be rolled out to New Zealand.

There are rumours of the full features being rolled out in Australia however.

Google received 78.45% of all global searches in July, according to NetApplications, while Bing had 3.17%, behind China's Baidu with 8.87% and Yahoo’s 7.15%.