Bing and Yahoo Now Represent 26% of the Search Market

A deal between Bing.com (Microsoft's new search engine) and Yahoo is now official. Together the search engines will command 26% of the search market. Currently Google is still leading the way with 70.6% of all U.S. query volume. The remaining 3.4% of the search volume is left for other players such as Ask.com for 54 other notable competitors.

Yahoo shares dropped immediately following the announcement of the deal. The first day following the announcement shares for Yahoo dropped 12%. The following day shares dropped 3.57%. Steve Ballmer defended the deal, saying that investors simply misunderstand it.