Research by web monitoring firm Hitwise reveals that the combined forces of the UK and .com properties of Google, Ask, Yahoo! Search, and MSN Search power 94 per cent of all UK internet searches.

This equates to 14 per cent of search engines (8 out of 57) powering 94 per cent of searches.

Comparing the four weeks ending 1st October 2005 and the four weeks ending 2nd October 2004, the volume of searches powered by the combined UK and .com properties of Google, MSN Search, Yahoo! Search and Ask has increased by 70 per cent.

"These gains have been driven by growth in searches performed on Google UK and MSN.co.uk Search", said Heather Hopkins, Director of Research for Hitwise UK.

"MSN and Google have been extremely successful at promoting their search toolbars, driving up the volume of UK searches they power. MSN has also likely benefited from the default search page on Internet Explorer."

Google UK (www.google.co.uk) continues to dominate the search engine market in the UK, powering 63 per cent of all internet searches in the four-week period ending 1st October 2005. Collectively Google UK and Google.com power 70 per cent of UK Internet searches.

Google UK also powers a much larger share of searches relative to the share of visits the site receives, indicating that for every visit to Google, users are performing multiple searches. Within one visit users seem to be performing a search, visiting a results page and returning to Google to perform another search.

Visitors spent an average of 13 minutes on Google UK in the week ending 1st October 2005. This was just under two and a half minutes longer than the average session duration for websites in the Search Engines and Directories category that week. The long session time supports the idea that users are performing multiple searches on Google UK during each thirteen minute visit.

Google's closest competitor, MSN.co.uk Search, powered 8 per cent of UK internet searches in that same four week period ending 1st October 2005.

In the US, Yahoo! Search is a stronger competitor. Amongst US internet users, Google.com powered 60 per cent of all searches, compared to Yahoo! Search at 27 per cent in the four-week period ending 1st October 2005.